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GUARDIAN Sun, 11 Dec 2011 19:59:01 GMT
Bond girl, fashion icon, renowned stage actor, Gurkha champion: Joanna Lumley has had a wonderful career. But it is her portrayal of Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous that is stamped on the nation's consciousness. She talks about the new episodes of the show
Perhaps, in retrospect, it was a mistake to mention Eleanor of Aquitaine's nipples to Joanna Lumley. And yet it seemed irresistible. After all, in the 1968 film version of James Goldman's Broadway play The Lion in Winter, Katharine Hepburn makes great play of them during Eleanor's so-called desolation monologue.
Picture the scene: it's Christmas, 1183, at the Château de Chinon. Eleanor, who has been imprisoned by her husband King Henry II of England (Peter O'Toole) since 1173, to be let out only for the holidays, has spent most of the action sparring with him and his hotsy-totsy mistress, or taunting her sons, compost-smelling John, historically neglible Geoffrey and future Lionheart, Richard. Now, near the end of the drama, her hopes for rehabilitation have come to nothing and, at 61, she has nothing to look forward to. "I've lost again," Hepburn's Eleanor says in that snooty Bryn Mawr-polished Connecticut accent. "I'm done for this time." And, then, in an odd non-sequitur, Hepburn takes up a gold chain, holds it up to her breasts and says (to the jewellery): "I'd hang you from the nipples, but you'd shock the children."
I recite these lines to Lumley, who looks at me with imperious blankness. She's impeccably polite, but there's something in her fixed look that says: how did this chump get past security? I feel like former immigration minister Phil Woolas did when he contradicted the Lumley Line at a Gurkha press conference. We're sitting backstage at London's Theatre Royal Haymarket where, in 90 minutes, she and Robert Lindsay will be playing the leads in Trevor Nunn's revival of Goodman's medieval Christmas from hell. She's coolly elegant in full makeup, black trousers and V-necked T-shirt, while I, damp and flustered from the rain, seem to have brought five plastic bags filled with books and notes supporting my unworthy nipples thesis, like some inept petitioner admitted to court against everyone's better judgment.
"But, darling," Lumley says, not unkindly, but firmly. "I don't know what you're talking about." "Desolation," I burble crossly, "the desolation monologue." "Desolation?" she says mystified. She's got a beautiful plump-lipped mouth and her matchingly captivating voice, a good octave below Hepburn's posh quack, would reduce stronger men than me to quivering wrecks.
I rummage for the relevant document (Fool! It was in the Morrisons bag, not the M&S one) while Lumley kindly rubs my knee, surely a breach of court protocol, but a personal career high for me. I look up, expecting her to be making throat-cutting gestures and mouthing "Abort! Abort!" to her PR minder. Instead, she says: "But there isn't a desolation monologue, darling." There was in the film. "They must have tarted the dialogue up for the film. It was never in the play, sweetie."
Lumley admires Eleanor. "She was the most powerful and enlightened woman of her age, and even now she is always popping up on lists of the 100 most influential women. A great linguist, she was also brave – she rode all the way to Damascus, an amazing feat for a woman in those days. She also introduced the notion of courtly love."
True, Eleanor of Aquitaine was an exceptional woman, but did she have a career as extraordinary as Lumley's? Of course not. Did she ever appear in an ad for Nimble bread? Did she ever appear as a knitwear model for a short-sleeve sweater under the headline: "Young and gay, simple to knit"? Did she ever play a Bond girl? Was she ever caught in flagrante between Brian Rix and Leslie Phillips in a three-in-the-bed romp during a west end farce called Don't Just Lie There, Say Something? Did she ever have an iconic helmet of a hairdo when playing Purdey in The New Avengers? Or stick a revolver....
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GUARDIAN Sun, 11 Dec 2011 00:06:00 GMT
So far as I dimly remember, I wasn't particularly keen on 17-year-old boys even when I was a 17-year-old girl, so this situation is mystifying
Television presenter Caroline Flack has been in the news for supposedly dating Harry Styles from One Direction.
Well, "in the news" is one way of putting it. Hounded and bullied is another, and not just by One Direction fans.
I keep expecting to look out of my window to see Flack being dragged through the streets, shaven-headed, and tarred and feathered. All because Styles is 17, while Flack is 32. Which seems to mark her out as a criminal, except in the eyes of the law.
Harry Styles turns 18 in a couple of months; does this make it any better? How about the fact that this is the same sweet innocent, tousle-headed Harry who, exactly a year ago, whispered excitedly into X Factor winner, Matt Cardle's ear, onstage, in front of millions of viewers: "Think of all the pussy you're going to get"? Styles's comment was lip-read, and he later "explained" to Alan Carr that he was telling Cardle that he would be able to buy some cats for his mum.
If you say so, Harry.
So, this is the young chap we're all supposed to be worrying about – the tender boy-flesh being sullied and exploited by the predatory Ms Flack?
Hardly a sheltered Little Lord Fauntleroy-type, is he? Perhaps not the kind of young man who would need much luring into a sophisticated lady-cougar's boudoir?
Indeed, it would seem that Master Styles is, as they say, game, which in fairness marks him out as no different to the vast majority of music industry males. The wish for better luck with the ladies, to put it delicately, is the main reason – along with money – why such a disproportionately high number of sweaty-palmed crooners, twirlers and pluckers, are mysteriously attracted to a career in music.
All of which makes a nonsense of the recurring cry of double standards If this were a 17-year-old girl and a 32-year-old man there would be uproar. First, these kinds of male-female age gaps are not uncommon, and usually garner few objections. Second, it just wouldn't happen in the same way.
As a rule, young females do not become performers in order to get sex. Young girls have their problems, their unmet needs are varied and many, but not in this department. It would be unlikely that a girl-version of Styles would feel driven to whisper excitedly into an X Factor winner's ear, in front of millions of viewers… well, you fill in the blanks.
In this way, Styles should not be judged for wanting the same perks as innumerable comely hip-wriggling young crooners before him. Nor should Ms Flack be judged for taking him on. Far from it.
Personally, I am extremely concerned about this coupling, but only because I can't imagine how any 32-year-old woman with a working brain could tolerate the irritation and the general lack of gorm of an average 17-18 year old. So far as I dimly remember, I wasn't particularly keen on 17-year-old boys even when I was a 17-year-old girl, so this situation is mystifying.
Somebody mentioned "energy levels" to me, but let's try to keep it clean. No offence to Harry in particular, who might be the most mature and fascinating of teenagers (and is just determined to keep it hidden).
However, just the thought of waking up, to find some Xbox-ing berk on the next pillow, asking if he can use the phone to tell his mum where he is, is surely enough to make the most voracious cougar want to retire quietly to the next room and hang herself with her support tights.
Ms Flack does not share my view, obviously.
But when I say, good luck to her, it's because I think she really needs it. But then, it's wee Harry Styles who seems to be getting all the luck.Nick is king of the Christmas cards
It is time to judge the party political leader Christmas card competition. Ed Miliband has gone for the jolly family gathering, with his wife and children. No brother though. Ed has on a lovely jumper, and such a beautiful.......
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GUARDIAN Sun, 11 Dec 2011 00:05:32 GMT
The comedian, 39, on being a fundamentalist atheist and Channel 4's big balls
Criticism of me is absolutely valid [Carr recently caused offence for making a joke about children with Down's syndrome]. People have a right to be offended. But I also reserve the right of freedom of speech to make a joke about whatever I want. I respect that people might say: "He's a terrible human being and I don't like him", but they can't say I stepped over the line – they drew the line.
Every comedian is Marmite. It's not like an actor, or a work of opera, where you can grow to appreciate talent. It's so clear cut with a comedian – you have that reflex action, whereby you laugh or you don't. And so you either love us or you simply cannot see why people are laughing.
The tragedy for comedians is there's nothing more they want than to be liked. We desperately seek approval. It's almost like a personality disorder you can do as a job.
I have a very strange laugh. I laugh on the in, not the out, so it sounds like a seal honking. The last time I really lost it was when I saw James Corden's play One Man, Two Guvnors; members of the audience came up to me in the interval and commented.
I've become a fundamentalist atheist. I think the idea that death is not the end, that your dog's just gone to live on the farm, is limiting. Thoughts like that prevent you from making the most of the time that you have.
I don't think it's any coincidence that I lost my religious faith and "manned up" in the same year. I was described somewhere as a lapsed Catholic, which is funny because I'm not going back! I want to achieve things rather than live life in an animalistic way.
Channel 4 has big balls. I don't tend to work very much with the BBC. I like lawyers and commissioners with enormous cojones, who just say: "If it's funny and you believe in it, on you go." Bizarrely, that free work environment actually makes you more responsible.
It's taken me a while to get my confidence. I was very nervous about recording DVDs, doing television, doing gigs. It wasn't until a couple of years into my career that I could throw my own head back and laugh myself. Stand-up scared me.
You need to have a word with yourself if you're ever in danger of a showbizzy hissy fit, going, "Oh, I'm rushed off my feet." You're doing stand-up three times in a week, telling jokes to people who like you and have paid to laugh. And the problem?
I don't think there's such a thing as overexposure. What a great thing to be criticised for: "Oh, you work too much." Well, thanks very much!
There's no lesson to be learned from my shows. No takeaway "Aha!" moment. I'm trying to release endorphins by making people laugh. I'm not sending any message, and I'm not running for office.
Jimmy Carr: Being Funny is out now on DVD
Jimmy Carr
Comedy
Comedy
Comedy
Radio comedy
Euan Ferguson
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GUARDIAN Sun, 11 Dec 2011 00:08:07 GMT
The lead singer of the Feeling opens the door of his converted pub, where he loves a singsong round his old piano
Dan Gillespie-Sells is an avid collector of stuff: vintage dolls, Babycham glasses, 60s vases, old radios, even porcelain dogs. It sounds horribly fusty, but when you walk into his house, a converted pub in London's East End, it all makes perfect sense. He started collecting radios as a child. "I started collecting radios as a kid – I guess I was an odd child. I'd go to car-boot sales with my dad and pick them up there," he says. He now has "hundreds of them" in his basement and his old bedroom at his father's house, with only his favourites on show, including the 1950s valve radio in his dining room: "I like listening to it warm up and crackle a bit. I'm gutted about the move to digital only," he says.
Gillespie-Sells and his partner Ryan moved into the pub two years ago, after outgrowing his last house. "I needed somewhere I could have everything in one place and a recording studio, with space for my instruments, too." Most of his furniture, such as the Formica cabinet, was bought on eBay while on tour with his band. "The Parisians had great taste in ridiculous Formica, and although it has fallen out of fashion, I still really like it."
Sitting on top of the Formica cabinet are some of his dolls. His favourites – the two at either end – are 1960s Japanese dolls found in a vintage shop on the Columbia Road. His Ivor Novello award, won in 2007, lives up there, too: "I like the way it's nestled among my cheap dolls and all the tat."
The dining room is the space where he and Ryan entertain. At Christmas they have a festive knees-up – champagne is drunk from Babycham saucers and the night always ends with a singsong around the old ship captain's piano. "I love the piano. I always think that if things ever go horribly wrong and I have to move into a bedsit, at least I'll still have a real piano that will fit."
One of his most treasured possessions is a framed photograph of his great-grandfather sitting at a church organ. "My family isn't very musical, it was just Appy Sells who was, so I like to think I inherited the musical gene from him."
The Feeling's The Singles (2006-2011) is out now
Homes
Shahesta Shaitly
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GUARDIAN Sun, 11 Dec 2011 01:10:00 GMT
From marriage equality to the end of don't ask, don't tell, this has been an extraordinary year. Here, Aaron Hicklin, editor-in-chief of Out magazine, looks forward to the end of gay culture
Gavin Bond's photos of influential gay figures
A funny thing happened in America in 2011. With the US political establishment in deadlock and Republicans bowing to Tea Party mandarins over a raft of issues from immigration to curbs on trade unions, one area of American civil liberties celebrated a watershed year. After decades in which gay rights have polarised US opinion, the country barely shrugged in September when a two-decade old law prohibiting gay men and women from serving openly in the military was finally repealed, prompting thousands of gay soldiers to post coming-out videos on YouTube – just one more example of how the web has transformed gay visibility. Less than two months earlier New York became the sixth, and biggest, state to allow same-sex couples to marry. To put that in context, there are more people living in New York than in the Netherlands, which in 2001 became the first country to legalise same-sex marriage.
The struggle for marriage equality has been one of the most bitterly divisive issues in America, but after a series of defeats for gay-rights advocates, the tide appears to be shifting irrevocably in their direction. A series of national polls this year has shown support for same-sex unions outgunning opposition for the first time since polling on the issue began in the 1980s – a dramatic turnaround from even three years earlier, when voters in California approved a ballot measure overturning same-sex marriage. In the 2004 election, under the keen encouragement of Karl Rove, no fewer than 11 states passed ballot initiatives banning gay marriage — a cynical get-out-the-vote ploy that helped swell Republican ranks at the polling booths.
The perception that marriage equality was a poisoned pink chalice persisted up to the 2008 election, when even Obama was careful to clarify that he wasn't in favour of gay marriage, apparently heeding warnings from Bill Clinton to give the issue a wide berth. Yet in this year's debates between the ragtag pack of Republican presidential nominees, the usual rhetoric denouncing gay marriage has been noticeably absent. Even Obama, facing precarious odds for a second term, has said that he favours repealing the notorious Defense of Marriage Act that has prevented federal recognition of gay marriages, even those performed in states where they are legal.
What changed in those few short years? In many ways the transformation of attitudes has been ongoing for decades, accelerated in large part by the impact of Aids, which reconfigured gay identity around community and relationships. In TV shows such as Glee and Modern Family, gays are no longer comic stooges or punchlines, their relationships treated with the same respect as those of their straight counterparts. They hold hands, they kiss, they even share the same bed. This was a quantum leap on 1990s shows such as Will & Grace, in which the gay characters had the whiff of "confirmed bachelors", to use the archaic euphemism of obituary writers, rarely presented in functioning relationships, much less in love.
To young gay men and women today the idea that they will be able to marry and raise kids no longer sounds outlandish or controversial. It sounds axiomatic. They see gay couples getting married in states such as New York and Massachusetts. They see Neil Patrick Harris, a popular television actor, posing on the red carpet with his partner, David Burtka, and their two children. They listen, alongside their straight friends, to gay anthems by Lady Gaga, and watch popular gay-inclusive shows such as True Blood. Most of all, they communicate with a diverse group of friends on Twitter and Facebook, where gay and straight teens revel in their shared cultural interests.
It is all a long way from the windowless gay bar with the.......
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GUARDIAN Fri, 09 Dec 2011 23:00:47 GMT
Guardian Weekend readers' letters, emails, comments
According to John Lanchester's Recession? What Recession?, "In [restaurateur Russell] Norman's view, there is a bubble in central London inside which people are still carrying on as if these were boom times." No, there are people who can afford to spend money on what they like. This isn't about boom and bust. It's about haves and have-nots.
ts808 On guardian.co.uk
John Lanchester says the median household income in central London is "£350 a week after housing costs". The same issue features kitchen "essentials" that include a £448.99 baking stone, two pairs of trousers that cost over £340, and two half-million-pound properties for potential investment. Sometimes it is time to acknowledge when you're part of the problem.
Rich Davey
Lincolnshire
Bully for London. I'm off to a Wimpy in Birmingham.
ReasonableIdiot On guardian.co.uk
Having just taken three hours to make five crumpets (Can Do, 3 December), 79p for six from the supermarket is always going to win.
silverkey On guardian.co.uk
Excellent article, though I don't agree on baked beans. It has to be Heinz.
cookeryteacher On guardian.co.uk
Anyone who kills poultry with garden shears is not a "can do" person. They are simply a savage.
Julian Boyce
Nuthall, Nottingham
Once Ed Miliband and the 30,000 BBC complainants give up their pursuit of Jeremy Clarkson, they'll be after Lucy Mangan for (a) setting fire to fancy dress party hosts, their guests and their pets, and (b) bigotry towards natives of Yorkshire .
Gareth Cox
London E1
I was pleased to find that David Cameron is by no means popular, but your correspondents did not take into account his loyalty: he prefers to put people out of work rather than make his rich friends pay more income tax. Similarly, Cameron said Jeremy Clarkson was "just being silly" when inciting violence against strikers, yet two young men in Essex were imprisoned for four years for trying to arrange a riot that did not take place. It seems Weekend readers have got Cameron's measure.
Kay Passingham
Rayleigh, Essex
A free meal? Suddenly Blind Date begins to make sense.
Caroline Reay
London SE19
My husband and son were sceptical when I described Tim Dowling's poo game, but within minutes were shouting contributions and laughing helplessly.
chickenlady On guardian.co.uk
A definite for our "games to play on Christmas Day" list. The best so far: my brother's Paranormal Activity.
Emily Bourne
Crawcrook, Tyne and Wear
I hope Tim Dowling also exposes his children to classics such as The Great Escape and Gone With The Wind.
Cathy Ching
London N10
One for the constipated: Mission: Impossible.
StayFree On guardian.co.uk
Another Fine Mess.
Rumplestiltskin On guardian.co.uk
Is Brad Williams free on Tuesdays to join our pub quiz team?
Heidi Smith
London SW2
Would you like a follow-up: "I can't remember what I had for dinner yesterday"?
Ron Brewer
Old Buckenham, Norfolk
• Got something to say about an article you've read in Guardian Weekend? Email weekend@guardian.co.uk. To be considered for publication on Saturday, emails should include a full postal address (not for publication), must reach us by midday and may be edited.
Follow Weekend on Twitter on twitter.com/guardianweekend.
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GUARDIAN Fri, 09 Dec 2011 08:00:03 GMT
Astrological advice is invaluable, priceless – and, these days, free. The cosmos is my crack cocaine
Astrology. It's my porn. It began with a late night Ceefax habit – even typing the word "Ceefax" makes me recall the intense, secretive thrill, in a totally Pluto-in-Scorpio way. Think of the dedication required to wait for several large pixel-font pages to load. That's the unswerving fidelity and attention to detail you only have when you have both Venus and Mars in Virgo. Hours later, Ceefax reached my Leo sun sign forecast. That's right: Leo. Like Madonna and JK Rowling, whose success I fantasise about eclipsing ... speaking of eclipses, there's a lunar one on 10 December so watch out for sudden epiphanies.
The cosmos is my crack cocaine and like all addicts, I crave my fix of stardust. Step in a horribly effective site called the Horoscope Junkie, which collates internet horoscopes. As with all addictive substances, you've got to be fussy about sources and quality if you really want to open the doors of perception into your own World of Wisdom and become as wise as Aslan. No, not Narnia's Aslan but Madalyn Aslan, whose enthusiastic weeklies I never miss.
Has anything astrology ever told me come true? I don't remember. Will it ever come true? I don't know. Does it add sparkle to my life? Astrolutely! As surely as an elfin Gemini at a cocktail party. Aren't I embarrassed to believe? Uh – we're about to celebrate the birthday of a half-divine man-boy-God born to a virgin, who was warned about it by an angel. Children are going to bed expecting an obese, middle-aged male stranger in a red suit to visit them in the night with a little present after travelling in a flying sleigh made by elves and pulled by reindeer. I'm not the weird one.
I love horoscopes because my present is boring and my past is embarrassing. I like to contemplate a future in which I have not yet humiliated myself. Some might say that horoscopes are the last resort of the deluded, the desperate, the falsely hopeful, the illogical, the superstitious and those with a tenuous grip on reality. I say: that's exactly what happens when dreamy, illusory Neptune's in Aquarius.
When you're deep in the Astrology Zone, which you need to be an Astrology Detective – perhaps even a full-on Astrology Wizard – to find, questions about relevance and veracity look woefully petty. I know it seems mad – I blame it on having a pesky case of Aquarius Rising. I'm still pretty discerning, though. Mystic Meg? Russell Grant? Lovely people I'm sure, but that's not how I roll … down my Cosmic Path. I prefer to act with a little bit of Astrostyle and hang with Stella Bella, Annabel Burton, Georgia Nicols, Astrobarry and Bridgett Walther. Each one is like a healing, soothing, encouraging Planet Whisperer whose wise predictions wash over me like a beautifully worded palliative in a sick, sad world.
Astrological advice is invaluable, priceless – and, these days, free. Oh, Mother of the Skye, am I thankful for that! It's because we're currently living in the Age of Aquarius, whose ruling planet, Uranus, signifies innovation, technology, speed, communication and globalism. The internet is now as big as the universe, but dumber. Most of the best-known astrologers (like the Observer's Neil Spencer) have lost their magazine and newspaper contracts to the free net. But then, they should have seen it coming.
Bidisha
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GUARDIAN Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:00:01 GMT
(Double Six)
Whatever other accusations you may wish to throw her way, you could never complain that Zooey Deschanel wilfully confounds her audience's expectations by playing against type. The critics may have tired of the on-screen persona characterised by one of their number as Manic Pixie Dream Girl ("adorkable or tweepulsive?" pondered Vanity Fair of her latest vehicle, the sitcom New Girl; the Onion simply retitled the show Zooey Deschanel's Nerd Glasses and Quirky Sense of Humour Render Her Undateable), but on she doggedly ploughs, or rather skips. Over on the website she co-founded, hellogiggles.com – recent posts include Thank You for Being My Cat, Winnie the Pooh Is a Friend of All of Ours, and Ponies – her latest missive furnishes a grateful world with the information that 7 December is Bestie Day. "I have a brand new list of weird suggestions for how to use this day to appreciate your beloved bestie!" writes Deschanel, who is 31 years old. "Make her initials in pancakes. Yum!"
Anyone who feels that kind of thing might cause them to bring up their last batch of pancakes is probably best advised to give her ongoing musical career a wide berth. In fairness, She & Him, her collaboration with Portland singer-songwriter M Ward, is a little less cutesy than you might expect from a woman whose previous musical project was called If All the Stars Were Pretty Babies. That said, fans never want for photos of Deschanel pulling kooky faces while wearing vintage dresses, and their last album contained a cover of Get Along Without You Now, a song made famous in 1957 by Patience and Prudence, a singing duo consisting of two sisters aged 11 and 14. Fans of Dimmu Borgir are thus advised that She & Him's oeuvre is probably not for them: in the unlikely event that any black metal heads are still on the fence, it's worth noting that the deluxe edition of A Very She & Him Christmas comes with a free pair of mittens.
Still, if ever a genre entitled its practitioners to dabble at will in toothsome cutesiness, it's Christmas music. The most deathless Christmas records tend not to be made by minimal techno auteurs or post-rock bands, but artists barely on speaking term with concepts such as subtlety and good taste: Wizzard, Slade, Elvis, Phil Spector. Oddly, however, She & Him have chosen this moment to scale back their honeyed sound. There's almost nothing to A Very She & Him Christmas: acoustic guitar, Deschanel and Ward's voices, occasional shadings of piano or reverb-heavy electric guitar.
It's all very well done – Ward is a great guitarist and arranger – but there's something audibly lacking. The idea is clearly to put a different emotional spin on the well-worn classics they cover. The influences they mention – the Carpenters, the Beach Boys and jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi's peerless soundtrack to the 1965 TV special A Charlie Brown Christmas – all famously dealt in melancholy of one kind or another. But in the cases of the Carpenters and the Beach Boys, the emotional power came from the way the ineffable sadness of Karen Carpenter's voice or Brian Wilson's melodies chafed against the sumptuousness of the arrangements. Likewise, the impact of Guaraldi's score is founded in the way its emotional temperature keeps changing from hushed and contemplative to five-year-old-on-Christmas-Eve.
Here, however, almost everything seems to proceed at the same stately, tasteful pace, save for Christmas Day, which breaks out the massed harmonies and drums and feels fairly magical. Elsewhere, however, it doesn't feel melancholy so much as joyless: their versions of Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree and Baby, It's Cold Outside seem weirdly forced, as if they were performed at gunpoint. It's a state of affairs compounded by Deschanel's voice. She's certainly not a bad singer as such, but she's a weirdly expressionless one, which is a problem when the album is so stripped back. Her take on Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas sounds like it was.....
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GUARDIAN Thu, 08 Dec 2011 21:00:15 GMT
Your report (Lifestyle could prevent 40% of cancers, 7 December) identifies smoking, intake of certain foods and alcohol as major preventable causes of cancers, and Cancer Research UK stresses that individuals need to address lifestyles. This seriously de-contextualises the problem and seems to take us yet again down a victim-blaming route. Income and social class connect directly, for example, to the poor diet imposed by Britain's OECD-documented widening income inequalities. It also produces poor housing near busy, polluting roads and explains dusty, dirty, chemical-laden jobs and long hours. These social, political and physical environmental factors all play into cancer incidence and prevalence, and should form part of a coherent cancer prevention strategy, which the UK lacks.
In Scotland, consecutive governments have looked at life circumstances as factors in creating ill-health and developed policies accordingly. This includes looking at and controlling the role of manufacturers and retailers of carcinogens in an effort to reduce exposures. In the UK we have industries that produce and governments that happily allow the production of carcinogens for consumption. What are cancer charities doing to prevent this and ensure upstream prevention of availability of and exposure to such substances? It seems many do little or nothing.
If social, economic and environmental deprivation is considered, another range of cancer prevention interventions – likely to be easier and cheaper to implement than lifestyle and behavioural programmes – would have a bigger impact. But that would of course mean taking on industry and challenging government. An illustration of the skewing of responsibilities comes, for instance, with failure to recognise that the report's estimated one in 25 cancers due to the workplace will include few middle and upper managers but will hit many manual workers in manufacturing and service industries disproportionately and they do not choose to be exposed to the carcinogens they have to work with. And where is the response to the 2011 Asturias declaration, following a WHO/International Agency on Cancer conference? These events included environmental and occupational exposures as preventable causes of a significant number of cancers and outlined prevention strategies that did not blame the consumer or individual, who comes at the end of a long line of agencies and bodies that produced, marketed and profited from the carcinogen industries.
Professor Andrew Watterson, Professor Rory O'Neill and Jawad Qasrawi
Occupational and Environmental Health Research Group, University of Stirling
• Can someone explain to me why it is still legal for companies (tobacco manufacturers) to sell an addictive drug (nicotine) which causes the premature deaths of half its users? Their products impoverish users, cause much suffering and cost the rest of us millions in healthcare. It doesn't make sense!
Michael Miller
Sheffield
• I am disappointed by the Guardian's coverage of proposals to improve the way individuals with cancer are handled by the benefits system ('Back to work' test plan for cancer patients, 7 December). This issue is an incredibly important and sensitive one for many people. Contrary to your article, I believe the government's proposals would significantly improve on the current system and would be of considerable benefit to those who face the real personal challenge of a cancer diagnosis and subsequent treatment.
The government's proposals have been developed as a result of evidence submitted to me by Macmillan and discussions with cancer specialists. The proposals would considerably increase the number of people who receive unconditional support in the benefits system. They would also reduce, not increase, the number of face-to-face assessments that individuals suffering from cancer would undergo.
The proposals are underpinned by a presumption that people undergoing cancer treatment will be entitled to the.....
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GUARDIAN Wed, 07 Dec 2011 11:47:00 GMT
New research details what causes cancer and how likely it is
• Get the data
What causes cancer? New research from Cancer Research UK shows that 40% of cancers in women and 45% in men could be prevented by a healthier lifestyle.
The Cancer Research UK report found more than 100,000 cancers each year in the UK are caused by four lifestyle factors - smoking, unhealthy diets, alcohol and people being too fat.
This rises to around 134,000 cases a year when 14 lifestyle and environmental factors are taken into account.
The key facts are:
• Smoking accounts for 23% of all cancers in men and 15.6% in women.
As well as lung cancer, it is implicated in other forms of the disease including bladder, kidney, pancreatic and cervical cancer
• One in 25 cancers is linked to a person's job, such as being exposed to chemicals or asbestos, while one in 33 is linked to infections, such as the human papillomavirus (HPV), which causes most cases of cervical cancer
• 34% of cancers in 2010 (106,845) were linked to smoking, diet, drinking alcohol and excess weight
• In men, 6.1% (9,600) of cancer cases were linked to a lack of fruit and vegetables, 4.9% (7,800) to occupation, 4.6% (7,300) to alcohol, 4.1% (6,500) to overweight and obesity and 3.5% (5,500) to excessive sun exposure and sunbeds
• In women, 6.9% (10,800) were linked to overweight and obesity, 3.7% (5,800) to infections such as HPV, 3.6% (5,600) to excessive sun exposure and sunbeds, 3.4% (5,300) to lack of fruit and vegetables and 3.3% (5,100) to alcohol
It is interesting, of course, to compare this with what the Daily Mail says causes cancer. The data from Cancer Research UK is below. What can you do with it?Data summary
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GUARDIAN Tue, 06 Dec 2011 15:45:00 GMT
We've already got pandas, and a rave renaissance is on the cards. Today's kids can be just as happy as their parents
We still believe the children are our future, but also that said future will be a bit bleak and probably rank lower on an internationally recognised scale. The news that around two-thirds of Britons think it unlikely that today's youth will have a better life than their parents seems like evidence of the end of human progress. But there are, it seems to me, a number of reasons for our youth to reject the modish narrative of everything going to hell in a handcart and be cheerful instead. To wit:
1. There is a strong possibility that woolly mammoth will soon be walking our shores again. If they find climate change uncomfortable, tough. We're all in this together.
2. Very soon, David Cameron will recognise that we are tired of using "we're all in this together" as a stick to beat the government with, and provide us with another catchphrase, like "no pain, no gain" or "this hurts me more than it hurts you, boy". British comedy will be reinvigorated.
3. We have giant pandas. Seventeen years without giant pandas in Britain and look where it got us. The whole panda story surely marks a turning point in the country's fortunes. Edinburgh zoo was in dire financial straits; it had to be bailed out with a massive loan; visitor numbers were down. What did it do? Did it become some kind of austerity zoo, with a couple of rescue parrots and a gerbil petting area? No, it splashed out on a bold panda stimulus package that is expected to boost ticket sales by as much as 70%. That's panda sense.
4. Despite everything, Britons still rank themselves as 7.4 happy out of 10. Richard Wilkinson, co-author of The Spirit Level, may argue that we're just putting a brave, proud face on it but what does he know?
5. Wilkinson does remind us that decades of economic growth have seen people's pursuit of happiness through wealth bump up against the law of diminishing returns. It's not so much you're earning as how much more you're earning than your peers. The knowledge that such petty, spiteful endeavour brings dividends is surely some comfort.
6. The "nightmare" of stagflation won't seem such a nightmare when people start talking about money in quadrillions. Quadrillions! When I was a boy the mere knowledge of quadrillions was a precious gift. Soon the clouds will open and see that gift rain down on the next generation, with teraflops humming about their ears.
7. Ten years ago, it is an indisputable scientific fact that across the world, and especially in journalists' Manhattan apartments, people were indulging in terror sex. In times of distress, we all seek intimacy. So we are likely to see boom times for depression sex. This may sound more mid-30s than 1930s, but the only alternative we have is "slump sex".
8. For those struggling to find depression sex, facial-matching technologies will combine with social networking to provide a solution. People will be able to take photos of passersby they fancy and when they have found them and been reported for stalking they will be able to find others who at least look very similar. This will also work if you are pining after a lost love, or are a narcissist who signs up to services set up to exploit the technology, with names such as doppelbanger.com.
9. Times of economic hardship are widely thought to produce great pop music. This is probably already happening under my nose. I don't know – I'm too busy these days clinging to gainful employment in a dying industry to look out for this generation's Ghost Town. I am, however, fairly sure that it does not involve Beady Eye.
10. The coalition's appetite for cutting through red tape looks like having some fringe benefits for our youth. The tourism minister, John Penrose, believes that for too long the nanny state has crippled our Punch and Judy industry with its laborious and costly live entertainment licensing system. Ministers are now......
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GUARDIAN Tue, 06 Dec 2011 17:22:57 GMT
Despite Bonn's unambitious final outcome document, it's not too late to make gender equality a key part of the transition process
I don't envy Selay Ghaffar. As executive director of Humanitarian Assistance for Women and Children of Afghanistan (HAWCA), an ActionAid partner, Ghaffar was one of only two civil society representatives selected to speak at the international conference on Afghanistan in Bonn on Monday.
Ghaffar is an industrious women's rights activist and sits on the executive board of the Afghan Women's Network (AWN), a key umbrella group for women's rights organisations in Afghanistan. As the only woman speaking for Afghan civil society at the Bonn conference, she had an important opportunity to ensure women's rights stayed on the agenda.
But she was officially given just three minutes in which to do it.
Three minutes to defend women's rights in a conversation otherwise dominated by male foreign ministers, traditional security agendas, and formal diplomatic rhetoric about peace, democracy, rule of law, justice and human rights.
In a survey of 1,000 Afghan women earlier this year, nine out of 10 respondents expressed concern about a possible return to Taliban-style government. It is not surprising, therefore, that women's rights advocates – from Ghaffar and AWN to members of the UK's "No women, no peace" campaign – have been so vocal about what they expected to see in the Bonn conference outcome document. They called for women to be involved in all parts of the peace and transition processes, not least at decision-making tables, where agendas for conferences like the one in Bonn are set; for the establishment of women's rights as a red line in any political settlement, with any and all players; and for the holding to account of anyone guilty of violating women's rights in an effort to curb existing cultures of impunity.
Ghaffar carried the same messages to British MPs, before Bonn, when ActionAid hosted her in London last week.
Thanks to the efforts of Ghaffar and other women's rights activists, the final outcome document of the Bonn conference specifically states that the international community expects the peace and reconciliation process to respect the Afghan constitution and its provisions for the rights of women. Unfortunately, the document takes a less definitive approach to women's participation in the peace process, merely calling for it to be "inclusive … regardless of gender".
Demands for women's rights were voiced by both male and female delegates throughout the two-day civil society forum that preceded the Bonn conference. When the UK MP Lynne Featherstone, who holds the role of champion on international violence against women, asked delegates what their top priority requests of the British government were, prominent Afghan women's rights activist Suraya Parlika explained that respect for human rights, education (including training) and good governance are all essential.
During the Bonn conference, Canadian, European and Indian government representatives all made strong statements about the need to support women's rights as part of the transition and peace processes in Afghanistan. William Hague, Britain's foreign secretary, has similarly tweeted his intention to prioritise women's rights in his approach to Afghanistan. But with what confidence can we approach these statements, given the last-minute reduction of the number of women in the Afghan government's delegation to Bonn and the ongoing questions about Gulnaz's case? Against the backdrop of an outcome document that could have been much more ambitious, both moves suggest women's rights remain a negotiable for decision makers.
It is not too late, however, to ensure women's rights are locked into Afghanistan's peace and transition processes. President Hamid Karzai is due to arrive in London to sign a strategic pact between the British and Afghan governments outlining future partnership arrangements and commitments. This pact...
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GUARDIAN Tue, 06 Dec 2011 18:00:01 GMT
Saudi Arabians have been shocked and embarrassed by the release of a negative and misogynistic report on women drivers
Women driving has been a controversial issue in Saudi Arabia since 1990 when 47 women got into 14 cars and drove on to a main street in Riyadh. They were stopped, suspended from work for two years and condemned for years in religious sermons and social circles. The last public assault was when Sheikh Mohammed Al Arefe in 2003 objected to the fact that these women were allowed to go back to teaching because he was worried that they would encourage their students to follow in their footsteps.
It took more than 15 years for another group of women to gather the courage to start a public movement against the ban on female driving. Since 2006, every few months there would be a study, petition, video or campaign but to no avail. This is no surprise, because there are just as many studies, videos, petitions and campaigns calling on the government to maintain the ban.
Professor Kamal al-Subhi has written the most recent of these studies. Subhi is an American-educated retired professor who took it upon himself to prepare a scientific study on the effects of women driving on society. The study is based on unstructured direct interviews methodology, in which he visited two unnamed Arabian Gulf countries and a third unnamed North African country to ask people about the effects of women driving.
Strangely, all the people he asked were unanimously against women driving and felt that one way or another it was the reason behind their societies' woes. Subhi categorised their replies into eight main comments, all of which were negative and misogynistic. One such comment: "Girls are the key to immorality. It will ensue if they are given unrestricted freedom because of their small mindedness or if they face a problem."
He also makes his own observations on these neighbouring societies:
"After a while, a woman got up and walked to her car in the parking lot in front of the Starbucks we were in. She shouted at the Indian cleaning her car for not doing a good job of it. She was wearing a pair of pants so tight that her innermost organs were discernible.
"Despite that, she put her hands on her knees and bowed down to point at a lower part of the car that the Indian had missed. The young men at the cafe were attentively watching through the glass this undoubtedly arousing scene. The whole place was indecent and smelt of moral disintegration."
Subhi refers to a study a fellow researcher told him about that was conducted by Unesco that linked women driving to adultery, divorce, rape and illegitimate children. He does remark, though, that he has not seen this study for himself.
Subhi wrote this 16-page study for a like-minded online group of influential intellectuals and writers. A third party felt it was worthy of a national audience and so took it to the Shura Council, a government-appointed advisory body made up of 150 members. At the Shura Council, the study was not only received but a Shura member also personally endorsed it. It was later leaked to women's rights activists who scanned a copy and posted it for the whole world to see.
The overwhelming majority of Saudis online were not only offended but also embarrassed that a Saudi so-called successful intellectual would write so lowly of women from neighbouring countries. There were also many remarks asking how the Shura Council members could have their time wasted by being given this type of study for consideration.
Subhi has issued a statement through the same online group in objection to the international ridicule that he and his study have been subjected to.
In this statement he writes that he knows the west, and his study follows international scientific standards no one can refute. He claims that he is so greatly respected by his western counterparts that they offered him citizenship. The problem with the international press report, he says, is that it was.....
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GUARDIAN Mon, 05 Dec 2011 07:00:01 GMT
Afghan women have been invited to the conference table, but activist Selay Ghaffar says gender equality in Afghanistan will only be achieved if people act on what they say
One of Afghanistan's most prominent women's rights activists, Selay Ghaffar, says she fears the fragile gains won by Afghan women over the last 10 years could be severely compromised if the international community rushes into closed-door peace talks with insurgent groups and Hamid Karzai's government.
On Monday world leaders gather in Bonn, Germany, for the next round of talks to discuss the planned 2014 withdrawal of international troops and the transition to Afghan-run security. But while concern for women's rights was held up as a justification for military intervention in Afghanistan 10 in 2001, Ghaffar says it looks all too likely that gender equality is already off the negotiating table.
The UK government is among those quick to point out the growing visability of women in Afghan society - in schools, workplaces and political office - over the last 10 years. But these gains are fragile, says Ghaffar, who heads up a Kabul-based NGO, Humanitarian Assistance for the Women and Children of Afghanistan, which runs women's shelters and legal aid programmes for women in rural areas. For example, there is now a national ministry for women's affairs, but it is neglected, she says; in 2008 the government launched a 10-year national action plan for women, but so far there's little to show for it; there are more women MPs, but they are often pushed into largely symbolic roles.
To ensure lasting change, women must be included in all stages of the transition process, says Ghaffar.
She expresses concern over the deteriorating security situation in areas currently under transition, and the failure to adequately include women in the recruitment and deployment of new security and police forces in these areas. "The biggest fear we have right now is reconcilliation with the Taliban," says Ghaffar. "Will women play a role in these discussions? Will women's rights be part of the negotiations?" Talks with insurgent groups, including the Taliban, are among the most contentious issues on the Bonn conference table.
Along with other women's rights activists, Ghaffar has been closely tracking the series of opaque high-level international conferences on the future of Afghanistan. Last year, when no women were invited to the conference in London, she got in with a press pass. She has been invited to attend Bonn as a delegate - she's the only female civil society delegate.
Ghaffar's invitation - and the fact that women will make up 33% of the Afghan government delegation - seems a significant breakthrough. However, Ghaffar is quick to temper these victories with a heavy dose of realpolitik: being allowed in the door is not the same thing as making decisions.
"Bonn is just a formality," she says, angry at having been shut out of the crucial pre-conference preparations, where agendas are shaped, documents drafted and alliances built. The way she describes it makes it sound like she's been invited to play a game in which the winner has already been chosen.
The growing number of women in political office and leadership positions in Afghanistan is often cited as an example of success for women's rights. Some 28% of Afghan parliamentarians are now women - a higher proportion than in France, Canada and Britain. But while women may be at the table, is anyone listening to them, says Ghaffar. "Are they being invited to discussions? Are their voices really included?"
Similar questions have been raised regarding the participation of women in the high peace council set up by the Afghan government to negotiate with the Taliban: women hold just nine seats on the 79-member council, and women's rights activists say these are largely symbolic positions. This disconnect between formal representation and real social change was the subject of this year's flagship report from the.....
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GUARDIAN Sun, 04 Dec 2011 00:08:01 GMT
Why does a mother whose wealthy friend is spoiling her godchildren feel so resentful about her generosity? Mariella Frostrup ponders our dysfunctional relationship with money
The dilemma Some years ago I asked a good friend to be one of four godmothers to my twin girls, who were christened at 12. She gave them a large sum of money on their birthdays and at Christmas, as well as a present, and in response to our protestations said that she had only a small family of her own and had no one else to spoil. My husband and I should have been firmer but didn't want to offend. Over time the amount of money has increased to double what we as a family buy as presents, making us feel awkward. Now our daughters are grown up, it puts them under an obligation to reciprocate, not only in buying her presents in return but inviting her and her family to what were previously occasions involving only our immediate family. I resent this and it is having a detrimental effect on my relationship with my friend, of whom I am still very fond.
Mariella replies So you say… yet judging by the tone of your letter I'm not so sure. You'd be hard pushed to explain to an alien from Mars, or indeed an American, why this friend isn't the perfect godmother. First of all, she's still around. In our increasingly secular society the responsibility that comes with being a godparent is lost on many on whom the compliment is bestowed. Until I had children, I didn't realise what a compliment it was to be asked and how important it was to live up to expectations. Two of my godchildren have grown up barely knowing me, geography and the vagaries of friendship creating challenges I failed to conquer. It's a fact I am not proud of. Your friend has displayed staying power and clearly carved out a unique role for herself. Appreciating that she's not there for religious guidance or parenting, she's offered what she has, an abundance of spare cash. Why should that be offensive? It's not like she's bribing them in compensation for not playing a part in their lives.
If anything, she sounds a little too perfect, filling their accounts with money and then turning up at what you define proprietorially as "family-only" occasions (and others might describe as "tedium incorporate"). Other people's family gatherings are on a par with their holiday snaps: a guaranteed turn-off for anyone not directly involved. Yet here is this super godmum, fistfuls of sterling at the ready and prepared to turn up to the domestic equivalent of the opening of an envelope. If I were you I'd be making sure she was a fixture on your invite list. Is it possible your daughters invite her because they like her?
Let's re-examine her crimes: outperforming your twins' natural parents on the financial front and, er… that's about it, isn't it? Perhaps she's just too perfect for your tastes? Only in the UK – where we have such a dysfunctional relationship with wealth, desiring it on the one hand, loathing ourselves for doing so on the other, and envying anyone who has more – could your friend's generosity be presented as a crime against your family. You don't mention the twins themselves: I wonder if they are complaining. It doesn't sound like she wants much in return, except to be included.
This time of the year can be extremely stressful for the financially challenged majority. Not a day goes by without my kids bringing up yet another toy they've spotted on TV, and I remember all too clearly doing the same thing to my own mother, hard up and desperate to give her children a Christmas of bounty. I'm sure she'd have welcomed a fairy godmother stepping in and helping to take the load off her shoulders. Has it occurred to you that perhaps this is more your issue than your children's? Perhaps if you embraced her generosity rather than set yourself up in competition with it you'd find it caused you less angst.
We all have unique gifts to hand on to the next generation. Accruing money and passing it on is just...
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GUARDIAN Wed, 30 Nov 2011 22:30:01 GMT
It's not the micropigs, handbag dogs and dwarf horses that are the freaks – it's their owners
Finally, some good news about growth. Or rather the lack of it. Whereas 10 years ago the pet fashionistas all wanted to own the biggest specimen available, they are now apparently falling over themselves to have the tiniest one they can get their paws on. At least, that's according to Super Tiny Animals (ITV1), which reported that sales of handbag dogs have increased significantly in the past few years.
"These dogs eat a quarter of the amount of a big one," Jane Horrocks's voiceover informed us. So are these the new austerity pets for austerity times, a vindication of Schumacher's "Small is Beautiful" economics? Hardly. Quite apart from the fact that almost everyone in the film seemed to have at least 10 of everything, from microdogs to microdonkeys, a bog standard microdog will set you back $800, while a top-of-the-range one costs $10,000. If Great Danes are ending up on skid row –......
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GUARDIAN Wed, 30 Nov 2011 13:08:24 GMT
If Afghans can't have a son they sometimes resort to dressing a daughter as a boy. It's a curious, often damaging practice
It may seem strange, if not downright unbelievable, that in a society obsessed with maintaining strict gender roles, one form of transvestism has become widespread and even acceptable. We are talking here about little girls sporting closely cropped hair, dressed in boys' clothing and carrying male names – the phenomenon known in Afghanistan as bacha posh ("dressed like a boy").
Discussing it with my Afghan friends, I discovered that many knew at least one bacha posh, if not several.
"Remember that famous theatre actress?" one friend recalled. "She lived on our street. During the Taliban rule, she dressed four of her daughters as boys."
"I knew a girl in Herat," another told me. "She used to do occasional labour work and sometimes beg on the streets."
There is also a celebrity bacha posh: Bibi Hakmina, a politician who was previously with the mujahideen.....
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GUARDIAN Tue, 29 Nov 2011 11:12:42 GMT
Our Pippa's book on hosting a party is for the domestic goddess age, unfortunately that was 10 years ago
Pippa Middleton is being paid £400,000 for a book on party planning for women. I'd love to know what a party-planning book aimed at men looks like, but they don't exist. It's only women who must seek validation by learning that pineapple-and-cheese-on-a-stick simply will not do.
Sadly for Pippa, this is woefully out of step with the times. Nigella's How to Be A Domestic Goddess came out 10 years ago (yes, I know, I'm sorry). We are in the post-domestic goddess age; we've made our cupcakes and have embroidered our own brooches, all while bathing in a soup of irony and lavender petals. Now we cheat, or at the very least we are honest – it is the time for the Domestic Slut; how to cuts corners and get away with it. This is "slut" in the slovenly meaning of the word, an approach I both exemplify and espouse.
It is also a time of austerity, so what is presumably the first step of..
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GUARDIAN Mon, 28 Nov 2011 19:59:01 GMT
Do you stay at home to stop others catching it, or head to work because you don't want to put your colleagues under extra pressure?
The dilemma
Your head feels as if it's made of chewing gum, your nose is dripping like a broken tap and someone has rubbed sandpaper down the back of your throat. You've got a cold – the first of between two and five that you're likely to get this year. You curse that man at work who sneezed all over you in the lift the other day. If your toddler catches this cold you'll get no sleep for a week. Don't people with colds realise they should keep them to themselves? But what do you do? Do you stay at home to stop others catching it, or head to work because you've got an important meeting and you don't want your colleagues to have to cover for you?
The solution
Colds are caused by viruses and last on average seven days, usually causing symptoms such as a runny nose, cough, loss of appetite, tiredness and, occasionally, a slight fever. Professor Ronald..
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GUARDIAN Sun, 27 Nov 2011 00:05:48 GMT
Approaching 40, Kate Bolick has come to a profound insight: that she – and many women like her – might never marry. But revealing that realisation in an article in an American magazine caused frenzied comment. Here's what she had to say
In 2001, when I was 28, I broke up with my boyfriend. Allan and I had been together for three years, and there was no good reason to end things. He was (and remains) an exceptional person, intelligent, good-looking, loyal, kind. My friends, many of whom were married or in marriage-track relationships, were bewildered. I was bewildered. To account for my behaviour, all I had were two intangible yet undeniable convictions: something was missing; I wasn't ready to settle down.
The period that followed was awful. I barely ate for sobbing all the time. (A friend who suffered my company a lot that summer sent me a birthday text this past July: "A decade ago you and I were reuniting, and you were crying a lot.") I missed Allan desperately – his calm,.....
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GUARDIAN Sun, 27 Nov 2011 00:07:13 GMT
Yes, there is greater equity between the sexes, but overall, the pay gap continues to favour men
It is not often, in these dark times, that one stumbles across a snippet of good economic news. So it's strange that one such shaft of sunlight in the gloom has gone mostly unsung. According to official statistics released last week, the pay gap between men and women – that barometer of shifting power between the sexes – has quietly shrunk to a record low and among younger women has shot clearly into reverse. Women in their 20s now earn a solid 3.6% more on average than men their age, after narrowly overtaking them for the first time last year. The rise of the female breadwinner, it seems, was no blip, but the beginning perhaps of a social and sexual sea change.
For an angry but vocal minority, that is a change too far, yet more proof that they are the underdogs now, trampled beneath the stilettoes of supposedly over-mighty women. The conservative family policy expert Jill Kirby even..
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GUARDIAN Wed, 23 Nov 2011 21:30:01 GMT
The problem with the press fixation on Pippa Middleton is the same as the hand-wringing over the Leveson inquiry – the boundaries between public/private are blurring as we speak
People are being shot and gassed in Egypt, but what about the fears that Pippa Middleton is "undateable"? Christ, I can hardly sleep. I mean, she has it all: a bottom, a princess of a sister, a collection of frocks. But she has no job, no bloke and she has to go to weddings every weekend. The seventh circle of hell.
If forced to take a punt on whether she will ever get a boyfriend, I would go with a tentative "yes", perhaps because oddly I know "stuff" about her. So I do feel for her. Real life must be difficult, when one has whole websites dedicated to one's posterior. When conceptual artists/confused fantasists are writing songs called I Know What Pippa Middleton Is Thinking.
Actually, real life just is just a drag full stop, hence our "need" for celebrities. We need to name and shame and identify......
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GUARDIAN Wed, 16 Nov 2011 09:46:05 GMT
Aviva survey claims a third of British families are giving financial support to relatives and friends to the tune of £442 a year
Almost a third of Britain's families are providing financial support to hard-up relatives and close friends as economic conditions continue to bite, according to a study, with the average "subsidy" totalling £442 a year.
As family dynamics change, some people are now more likely to financially support their friends than other members of their extended family, such as aunts and uncles, according to insurer Aviva, which produced the report.
But while many would see it as their duty to "bail out" friends and relations, this altruism comes at a price, Aviva claimed. It said cash handouts to ageing parents, adult children and friends who have hit hard times "can have a negative impact on a family's own finances".
Aviva suggested that in some cases it would be better for families to keep hold of this cash and use it to repay debts or save for........
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GUARDIAN Mon, 14 Nov 2011 00:01:01 GMT
Cancer charity attributes Britain's poor global placing – equal with Rwanda – to high alcohol intake and growing obesity
Heavy drinking and growing obesity are contributing to an increase in oesophageal cancer, a new analysis has claimed, as the UK topped a European survey of the disease.
Cutting back on smoking and alcohol and eating healthier would help Britons reduce their risk of contracting the cancer, according to the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF). It rates the UK as joint 31st-worst in the world, alongside some of Africa and Asia's poorest countries.
The figures, based on World Health Organisation estimates and adjusting them to take into account differing proportions of people in diferent age groups between countries, show 6.4 people per 100,000 in the UK developed oesophageal cancer in 2008, nearly double the European average (3.3). The charity said lifestyle changes could prevent most of the 7,600 deaths – more than 5,000 of them men.
Rachel Thompson, deputy head..
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GOOGLE Sat, 12 Nov 2011 03:59:33 GMT
USA Today
Doctors: Test all kids for cholesterol by age 11
San Francisco Chronicle
Al Behrman / AP In this Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2011 photo, Dr. Elaine Urbina, left, examines Joscelyn Benninghoff, 10, at Children's Hospital in Cincinnati. Benninghoff is taking medication to ...
Children should be screened for cholesterol, panel saysLos Angeles Times
Children 9 to 11 should have cholesterol tested, report saysWashington Post
Doctors: Test all kids for cholesterol by age 11Seattle Post Intelligencer
WKBN/WYFX-TV -USA Today -ABC News
all 611 news articles »
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GUARDIAN Sat, 12 Nov 2011 00:05:19 GMT
The first world war left many children fatherless. It ended 93 years ago, but does time heal the pain? Richard van Emden asks the sons and daughters of the Great War dead
OThe first world war left 360,000 children fatherless. Very few now survive, the youngest are in their 90s. These are the last of those who lost a father in the trenches of the western front, on the beaches of Gallipoli or in the deserts of the Middle East. Their stories of suffering and loss are as valid as those of the soldiers, but have been largely ignored. Here, six of them talk about the effects on their lives of losing their fathers so young.Donald Overall
Donald Overall's father died of wounds near Arras, in 1917, leaving a widow and two young sons. Donald is 98.
I was five when my father came home on leave. He sat me on the instep of his foot, and I used to hold his hands and he would rock me up and down. He was in his army uniform and I could smell his khaki and tobacco because he smoked a pipe. I.....
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GUARDIAN Fri, 11 Nov 2011 16:26:28 GMT
Yes, it's more twee than a Christmas twee, but at least these two know their way around a melody
As much as the festive season is about mistletoe and wine, children singing Christian rhymes, it's also about returning home to your family and seeing people from your past who only appear in your life once a year. This sense of rekindling old relationships is at the heart of Home for the Holidays, the first single to be taken from Emmy the Great and Tim Wheeler's forthcoming Christmas collection, This Is Christmas. Comprising nine original songs and an obligatory cover, it was initially recorded under the moniker Sleigher, with sessions starting after the pair were grounded by snowstorms last December. As with recent Christmas albums by She & Him and Sufjan Stevens, there's a danger of twee overload with Home for the Holidays – "Let's meet up for a drink/ On the old park bench/ In the place we almost kissed" – but the endearing nostalgia and the fact that they both know their way......
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