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GUARDIAN Sun, 18 Dec 2011 00:06:40 GMT
While British and French politicians trade insults over the eurozone crisis, this latest spat is being met with a Gallic shrug
At a Christmas party in a chic part of Paris, not far from the Eiffel Tower, French and British guests were getting on famously over champagne and foie gras canapés.
Outside, a cross-Channel diplomatic war was raging, but here was a haven of seasonal cheer, peace, goodwill and carols in both languages.
"It's all rather silly," said one English guest. "A bit playground, you know 'my economy is bigger than yours... nah nah'."
His French friend agreed: "It's ridicule. So – how do you say? – childish."
As we parlayed, an American investment banker stepped in and offered to act as referee. "So, this is the entente discordiale," she joked.
Waiting outside my daughter's school on the last day before the Christmas break, the atmosphere among the British and French parents was equally amicable. "Are we at war again?" one French mum asked after giving the traditional Gallic bises, pecks on each cheek. "I'm off to England next week, I hope they don't all hate us."
There is, of course, nothing new in Britain and France falling out, and it takes very little for it all to descend into insults and nastiness. As Le Monde journalist and author José-Alain Fralon has pointed out, both countries regard each other as "our most dear enemies".
But from the civilised drawing rooms of homes on the grand Haussmann boulevards of Paris to the butcher at the local market and the man at the newspaper kiosk, the reaction was much the same: joking, teasing, the occasional "oh, you British…", but none of the rancour that has characterised this latest diplomatic spat.
As the politicians and officials threw insults and blame across what we call the English Channel and the French call la Manche, the rest of us could only look on with dismay. "What I don't understand is how talking down Britain helps France," said my French husband.
But it was a good excuse for bringing the stereotypes out of the cupboard for a new airing. "Come on, admit it, you British have always messed about over Europe. You want to eat your butter but still have it to sell," as one Parisian colleague put it.
"All this is just sooooo British," said another.
French friends in London have another perspective and rang to say how hurt they are about what the British papers are writing about the French (in between enthusing about how the British capital is so much more festive than Paris and how they are buying mince pies to have with the traditional oysters and foie gras this Christmas).
"It's bordering on racism and xenophobia," said Marie, a Parisian friend who had just returned from London. "Luckily we know you, and we know most ordinary English people don't really think like that."
Neither, it is hoped, do the French see us all as portrayed on the front cover of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, showing an overweight, underdressed woman with a stomach piercing and "Fuck Off" tattooed on her arm with a raddled-looking man in a crumpled suit and bowler hat.
In the current climate of tension, it must be galling for France's leaders that the union flag is de rigueur in Paris these days and not just fluttering high over the British embassy. The vagaries of fashion have dictated that red, white and blue are the new black this season. Shops in the French capital are full of union flag mobile phone cases, union flag bags, rugs, mugs, cushions, T-shirts, badges and even sofas covered with our national ensign.
Britain's economy may or may not be in a worse overall state than France's. The average person in the rue may or may not rather be French than British at this time in history, but it seems many of our Gallic neighbours want to wear, carry or sit on a union flag, though the desire to trample on a British flag doormat could well be subconsciously symbolic.
At another Christmas party on Friday, guests were being even-handed and conciliatory. The......
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GUARDIAN Tue, 13 Dec 2011 18:08:21 GMT
EU ministers call for checks on telecom operators that penalise the smooth functioning of services such as Skype
Voice-over-internet companies complaining that mobile and landline internet providers penalise the smooth functioning of their services got backing from EU ministers on Tuesday, who called for the European Commission and regulators to check on telecom operators that do so.
The move gives leverage to complaints about mobile carriers around the world that have blocked internet telephony services such as Skype.
A report by the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) association, VON Europe, whose members include both Google and Skype-owner Microsoft, says Vodafone Group restricts access to web-based calls on pay-as-you-go deals, while some mobile providers do not allow VoIP at all, including France Telecom's Orange, Bouygues, Germany's E-Plus and its parent group, Dutch provider KPN.
It points to the example of the French operator SFR which sells "internet access" packages for Apple's iPad which specifically ban voice-over-internet (VoIP) and peer-to-peer use, while labelling it "unlimited". In the UK, only Three and O2 allow VoIP-based use of the iPad on their mobile internet packages.
"In other words, ISPs do have incentives to discriminate between players operating at the application and content layers," notes VON Europe's report. "Internet service providers can act as monopolists by shaping traffic in a way that departs from the application providers', content/service providers' or users' interests."
Ministers urged the pan-European regulator and the European Commission to monitor mobile companies' traffic management to ensure they do not hamper "net neutrality", meaning that all services are treated equally.
The regulator, BEREC, says infringements of "net neutrality" – in which some internet traffic such as voice calls is blocked in favour of other data – are infrequent, but ministers are concerned that some services are being throttled.
That in turn could stifle the development of brand new services because carriers and telecoms companies would defend older models, but put Europe at a disadvantage compared with countries that better implement net neutrality.
In the US, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recommended a number of rules to enforce net neutrality on fixed, though not mobile, companies at the end of 2010. But mobile carrier Verizon Communications challenged even that weak approach in October.
BEREC will publish a joint report from regulators in the 27 EU member states in February on whether telecom firms respect the principle of net neutrality.
Microsoft's Skype service says it is either blocked or overpriced by mobile operators, who see its low-cost service as a threat to their business. Skype's customer base is forecast to reach 150 million by 2016, according to Juniper Research.
The Netherlands passed a law in October banning mobile firms from charging customers extra for web-based call services.
Internet
Telecommunications industry
Skype
Mobile phones
European Union
ISPs
Digital media
Microsoft
Vodafone
Charles Arthur
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WASHINGTONPOST Mon, 12 Dec 2011 10:27:12 EST
Already the visual appearance between Nook Tablet and Nook Color made it hard to differentiate, and now with Color's version 1.4.1 update, the feature set is beginning to look decidedly similar to its successor, too. With today's new software, its "biggest ever update," Barnes & Noble is adding Netflix and Flixster video apps, with more said to be coming soon, Nook Comics for all your Marvel needs, and other enhancements like in-line dictionary support and landscape reading options. The update will roll out automatically over Wi-Fi, but if you're willing to do some manual labor, Barnes & Noble has the update available as a zip file for self-administering. Read full article >>
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GUARDIAN Mon, 12 Dec 2011 15:00:00 GMT
But the £2 drop-off fee stays and the forecourt isn't going to be snazzy for a while yet
Recession or not, Leeds-Bradford airport is spending £11 million on improving its terminal high on a hill north of Leeds, although two of travellers' grouches will remain, at least for now.
The money will be spent on extending the security area, where there is often a long queue, and enlarging the waiting area for outbound passengers with, inevitably, more shops.
There will also be a covered walkway from the terminal to planes, a potential blessing on an exposed site which frequently gets the brunt of wind and rain. My own Yeadon highlights include a flight which was delayed by icing-up until, on the suggestion of passengers among others, the plane was moved from the shade into sunlight, which did the trick.
The unaltered irritations are the £2 drop-off fee, which leads to passengers getting out on approach roads before their lifts get locked into the one-way, no-escape system; and the continuing mess in the security area imposed on the terminal forecourt after the Glasgow terrorist attack. That was four years ago, but Yeadon's apron between the terminal and the bus-stops has been an unwelcoming dead zone all that time.
This will change, the airport says, once use of a major part of the area for contractors making the terminal improvements is over. The airport is interested in suggestions for how to make the space more agreeable, so please send them in. My own would be some sort of vintage aircraft on display, like the Spitfires and the like which you see at the entrance to RAF bases.
The drop-off fee is staying. The airport says that 12 other UK airports impose similar charges and so this appears to be the shape of things to come. They promise, however, to give better publicity to the option of an hour's free parking in the long-stay with drop-off passengers getting the free shuttle to the terminal. There's also the under-used 757 airport bus to and from Leeds.
Taxi drivers have to pay the fee too, but can buy a £25 annual ticket for 15 free minutes per drop-off in the short-term car park
The investment promises good things otherwise, with Jet2 making a far better fist of being 'Yorkshire's airline' than any of its predecessors. The airport's chief executive John Parkin wants to see passenger numbers rise from 2.95m to 5m and destinations from 70 to 100.
Coun Richard Lewis, Leeds City Council's executive member for city development, says:
The development of the inside of the airport terminal building will greatly improve the travelling experience for overseas visitors, travellers and tourists. All of this is extremely important for bringing business, tourism and investment to Leeds and the wider city region.
We also welcome the new jobs that will be created through the programme and particularly the commitment to use local labour wherever possible."
One matchless thing about Yeadon is coming in from the north on a sunny day when the plane skims in over Otley Chevin and the ground leaps up to meet you after the approach along Wharfedale. It's like landing on a dining room table.
Leeds
Air transport
Yorkshire
Financial crisis
Martin Wainwright
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GUARDIAN Sun, 11 Dec 2011 13:14:32 GMT
The response of the Canadian government to the emergency in Attawapiskat shows why indigenous communities are in trouble
In October, the Attawapiskat First Nation declared an emergency. And no one came to help.
The community, situated in far northern Ontario and made up of 1,800 mostly Cree citizens, has announced that its situation is dire, due to a "severe housing shortage". The community has been visited by an opposition MP and filmed. The images relayed back are horrifying. There are generations of families living in flimsy tents or shacks built from mismatched plywood and covered with tarpaulins. Mould seeps through insulation and runs down the walls. Pails of excrement are being thrown in ditches. Children have chronic skin diseases brought on by poor living conditions, others have third-degree burns caused by cheap stoves. A hundred people live in a prefab trailer, crammed into rooms with just four bathrooms for all. The temperature drops a few more degrees below zero every day. It gets as low as -40C in the winter – without the wind chill. Mothers say baby shampoo freezes sitting on the shelf.
Most citizens of Attawapiskat have endured these desperate conditions since a sewage overflow drove them from their homes in 2009. Some have lived this way for longer. Now, with most temporary accommodations deteriorating, the situation has become critical. But despite repeated calls to the department of Indian and northern affairs, their issues have been ignored.
There are more problems. Schooling takes place in temporary constructions, erected after a diesel fuel leak took the main building in 2000, and even after an energetic campaign by students, no plans to build a new one have been made. Unemployment, alcoholism and crime are rife. Disaster officials are now working at the scene. To add to the irony, a few miles away (and on Attawapiskat land), the DeBeers diamond mine extracts hundreds of millions of dollars in resources, delivering valuable tax dollars to governments – but, while it employs a small part of the community, the riches, for a variety of reasons, remain in the hands of others. It's a scene one frequently sees in the developing world. But here it is, in Canada.
For all the extremity of the Attawapiskat situation, perhaps the biggest disgrace for Canadians is that poor living conditions, mediocre educational systems and deprived health are the norm for many First Nation communities. As the MP Charlie Angus notes, there are numerous "Bantustan-style homelands in the far north" of Canada.
The federal government's response to the crisis has been a combination of arrogance and bullying. The prime minister, Stephen Harper, stood up in parliament to argue that widespread corruption on the part of band leaders was to blame, stating: "This government has spent some $90m since coming to office just on Attawapiskat. That's over $50,000 for every man, woman and child in the community. Obviously we're not very happy that the results do not seem to have been achieved for that."
As the author of the apihtawikosisan blog points out, this figure not only conflates the amounts allocated for education, maintenance, healthcare and social services but ignores the cost difficulties brought about by Attawapiskat's remote location and the fact it is over a number of years. Full government-sponsored audits since 2005 are available on the official Attawapiskat website.
Then Harper placed Attawapiskat in third-party management. Last Monday, when the controller arrived, he was promptly asked to leave by the community – and did. Now, the aboriginal affairs minister, John Duncan, has given Attawapiskat two choices: either hand over control of their affairs directly to the federal government (at a cost of $180,000 to the community), or evacuate the needy families. As chief Theresa Spence states in a press release: "It is incredible that the Harper government's decision is that instead of offering aid and assistance to Canada's....
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GUARDIAN Sun, 11 Dec 2011 00:04:19 GMT
With 1.09 million women unemployed in the UK, schemes to help them into work are now even more crucial
Like many mothers, Michele Pouyioukkas has to tussle with her 20-year-old daughter to get on to the family computer. But in her case it is not because they are both impatient to check emails and Facebook. They are desperate to get on to job websites in the hope something new has come up and they might finally find a way back into work.
The 47-year-old mother of three lost her job as a dental receptionist 18 months ago, and her daughter has been out of work for all that time, too. They are among the 1.09 million unemployed women in the UK – a total that has been rising since the recession ended and is now the highest in more than 20 years.
There is little chance of any good news for Pouyioukkas when the latest unemployment data is published on Wednesday. While the recession saw large swaths of men lose their jobs, it is women who have been hit particularly hard in the aftermath, as the public sector and retailers have cut staff. Two-thirds of public sector jobs are held by women and positions in retail are similarly dominated by females.
With signs that the spectre of a double-dip recession is spooking high-street spending, and predictions from the Office for Budget Responsibility that 710,000 jobs will go from the public sector by 2017, female unemployment is likely to get much worse before it gets better. For many women, years already taken out of their careers to care for family mean that they feel less attractive to prospective employers. And then there is the time spent out of work while looking for new jobs now.
"Once you get out of work, it's so hard to get back in," says Pouyioukkas. "I began to feel that looking at my CV people think: 'She's been out of work for a long time.' But it's not for want of trying. There are jobs but so many people are going for those jobs." She has been taking adult learning centre courses in literacy, maths and customer service skills, but it has not always kept depression at bay. "It's not that I don't care about what the salary is, but anything is better than nothing. All I want to do is a job that I enjoy, give my all to that job, come out happy at the end of the day and feel fulfilled in that job. Being out of work makes you depressed, everything slips by."
The Fawcett Society, which campaigns for gender equality, blames the government's deficit-cutting programme for much of the pain being felt by women. It says women face "triple jeopardy" as a result of the austerity drive: cuts to jobs, cuts to services and benefits, which women generally use more, and being left to "fill the gaps" that services and benefits no longer reach, such as caring for older people.
On jobs, it predicts more challenges for women ahead as the public sector shrinks.
Anna Bird, the society's acting chief executive, says: "It's highly likely that the majority of these job cuts will come from women. The government's overall approach to reducing the deficit risks turning back time on women's equality."
There are also concerns that the public sector shakeout and the push to move jobs into the private sector could widen the pay gap between men and women. In the public sector the gap is 9.2% in terms of median full-time earnings. In the private sector the gap is double that, at 18.4%.Boosting confidence
But there are dangers of focusing too much on the gloomy outlook, warns Delyth Evans, who runs a charity helping women back to work. She is worried that those who have lost their jobs will feel too disheartened to look for a new one, something that breeds its own problems.
"Women are facing particular challenges going back to work, and we don't hide that from them. But it's about keeping them going, looking for jobs, keeping their confidence up," she says. "Whatever the reason, if you have been out of work for a while your confidence goes through the floor."
Evans is executive director at the British...
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GUARDIAN Sat, 10 Dec 2011 14:55:38 GMT
Four of the six acts performing in addition to the finalists are signed to Cowell's Syco or affiliated labels
A row has broken out before this weekend's X Factor final amid complaints the programme is favouring guest performers such as Leona Lewis who are signed up to Simon Cowell's label.
Rival record companies say it is wrong that four of the six acts performing in addition to the finalists – Amelia Lily, Little Mix and Marcus Collins – over Saturday and Sunday are signed to Cowell's Syco or affiliated labels.
Westlife, JLS, One Direction and Leona Lewis are due to sing, as are Coldplay, who are on EMI, and Michael Buble, who is signed to Warner Music. Particular anger is directed at Lewis, as she does not have a new album out.
"The X Factor final should feature the biggest acts in the world," said one senior industry insider. "Leona Lewis is already frankly on the way down. JLS and One Direction have already been on this series, and you have to question the choice of Westlife."
Westlife were originally co-managed by Louis Walsh, now an X Factor judge, and signed their first record deal with Simon Cowell in 1998. Cowell has not yet appeared on this year's British X Factor, but Syco remains the lead producer of the show.
Warner Music, home to Bruno Mars and Ed Sheeran, complained in writing to the broadcast regulator Ofcom on Friday that ITV was not exercising proper editorial control of the programme. The regulator said it would adjudicate after the final programmes have been aired.
Universal Music, the world's biggest record company, and home to Take That and Girls Aloud, is also understood to be preparing a formal complaint to Ofcom. It has long been wary of X Factor because Cowell's Syco is half-owned by its chief rival, Sony Music.
In the absence of Top of the Pops, there are only a handful of slots for rock and pop artists to perform on primetime television. Bookings on X Factor, particularly over the final weekend, are sought after in the Christmas sales period.
Cowell's production team had hoped to book Adele, who is signed to an independent label, for the final weekend but the singer has recently undergone throat surgery.
Syco executives produced a factsheet to rebut the complaints, noting that Michael Buble and Coldplay were signed to other music majors. They pointed out that three of the four judges – Gary Barlow, Tulisa and Kelly Rowland – were all signed to Universal, and all three will be dueting with their acts.
Including those duets, and over the course of the 10-week run of the series, Syco and Sony have had 10 acts on the show, eight of whom are former contestants. Universal will have accounted for 13, including the judges, while Warner Music and EMI (which is in the process of being sold to Universal) will have had three each.
ITV declined to comment. An X Factor spokesman said: "The X Factor ensures acts from a range of labels appear on the series so one label is not favoured over another."
The X Factor
Television
Entertainment
Television industry
ITV
Music industry
Pop and rock
Dan Sabbagh
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GUARDIAN Sat, 10 Dec 2011 16:43:17 GMT
Bob Diamond says he has kicked out 30 staff for breaking his new ethics rule and warns 'no one should ever not be nice'
The Barclays chief executive has imposed a "no jerks" rule at the bank.
Bob Diamond said "jerk" bankers were epitomised by an infamous 2002 episode in which six Barclays staff ran up a £44,000 alcohol tab over lunch at a London restaurant.
"Everyone gets stressed from time to time but no one should ever not be nice. You know what a jerk is when you see it," he said.
In an interview with the Times, Diamond said the rule applied to bankers considered to be prima donnas, too greedy, too ostentatious or poor team players. He said he had already kicked out 30 staff for breaking his new ethics rule.
"If someone can't behave with their colleagues and can't be part of the culture, it doesn't matter how good they are at what they do, they have to be asked to leave," he said.
Referring to the incident in 2002 at the Gordon Ramsay restaurant Petrus, Diamond said: "That was embarrasing. It was taking advantage – we have a responsibility to our colleagues to have acted that way in a public place was inexcusable."
The bankers consumed some of the most expensive wine available to London diners: a 1982 Montrachet priced at £1,400 and three bottles of Petrus Pomerol. A 1945 bottle of Petrus cost £11,600, a 1946 bottle £9,400 and a 1947 bottle £12,300. There was also a dessert wine costing £9,200. The restaurant threw in the food for free.
Diamond, 60, who has dual British-American nationality, landed the top job at Barclays a year ago. He has been criticised himself for his lavish pay, earning £6.75m last year.
Bob Diamond
Barclays
Banking
Lisa O'Carroll
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CHICAGOTRIBUNE Tue, 06 Dec 2011 22:00:00 GMT
Q. I was at a party this weekend and, of all the crazy things to talk about, a discussion started about what is the biggest danger to a house falling down. Wind, poor soil, bad foundation, poor construction, etc., were all debated heavily. I so wish you would have been there to settle the debate. What, in your opinion, is the biggest danger to a house? --Mike C., Bar Harbor, Me.
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GUARDIAN Tue, 06 Dec 2011 10:48:03 GMT
Halifax measure also shows a 1% fall year-on-year – figures that contradict Nationwide's snapshot which said prices rose 1.9%
House prices fell by 0.9% across the UK in November 2011, partly reversing the 1.2% rise in October, according to the latest Halifax house prices survey.
It said the average home is now worth £161,731, down 1% compared to November 2010. And Halifax said the underlying trend is downward, with November marking the third fall in the past four months, dragging house prices down by 0.6% in the three months to November compared to the previous quarter.
Despite the negative trend, Halifax housing economist Martin Ellis said house prices had been stable: "[November prices continued the] mixed monthly pattern seen this year. House prices have remained remarkably stable in 2011 despite the difficult and deteriorating economic climate and the substantial pressure on households' finances.
"The UK average price now is only marginally lower than at the end of 2010. In addition, activity has recently shown a few signs of strengthening a little. We expect the market to remain broadly unchanged in terms of both prices and sales over the coming few months as demand and supply conditions alter little."
In November 2011, Land Registry figures showed house prices falls accelerated in October with a drop of 0.9%. This was immediately contrasted by Nationwide, which said the housing market remained "surprisingly resilient" in November.
"The Halifax house price index has muddled the debate even further by issuing a decidedly downbeat snapshot of the market," said Tracy Kellett, director of the estate agency BDI Homefinders. "Behind the apparently contradictory data lies a housing market which is still essentially stagnant, with paltry levels of transactions.
"This is why tiny variations in the numbers will make house price indexes fluctuate wildly. But such volatility should never be confused with progress."
Howard Archer, economist at IHS Global Insight, pointed out how far house prices were below their peak: "On the Halifax measure, house prices last peaked at £168,593 in April 2010 and fell to £160,393 in April 2011 before moving back up to £163,765 in July 2011. They stood at £161,731 by November. Consequently, they were 4.1% below their April 2010 peak. The all-time seasonally adjusted high for house prices on the Halifax measure was £199,612 in August 2007, so house prices in November 2011 were 19% below this level.
"We currently see house prices falling by around 5% from current levels by mid-2012 before stabilizing in the latter months of the year."
Halifax claims to operate the UK's longest-running house price index, with data going back to January 1983. But Land Registry figures are generally considered a more accurate reflection of house price movements because it publishes data from actual registered transactions.
House prices
Property
Housing market
Mark King
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GUARDIAN Sat, 03 Dec 2011 14:59:01 GMT
It is difficult to understand the economic crisis without getting to grips with Greece's broader cultural identity
As Carl Schmitt has shown, forms of political organisation correspond to metaphysical images of the world. Nowhere is this better demonstrated than the current political and economic malaise of Greece.
The history of occidental democracies is the story of educated and affluent Protestants gradually diverting popular reverence from landed nobility and the divine right of western kings to the right to own and utilise property for profit. In secular polities, belief in salvation through obedience to the omnipotent God's will on Earth is not eliminated but transformed; "God", originally a mysterious maker (as he still is in Judaism, eastern Christianity and Islam), became something terrestrial if equally abstract: the nation, the market or the revolutionary mass.
The old God sanctioned the king to act as Christ, and suffer for the benefit of his people before bouncing back; the market-god and its plebeian rival expected the same from government with bourgeois liberty and social justice vying for the role of the holy spirit. Today, worshippers of the omnipotent market and of the masses seem ready to dispense with the services of any government-as-Christ. Salvation will come through the will "of the market" or of the "people" directly materialising itself.
Only in occidental politics does "salvation" come when the will of an omnipotent master (first nobility, then God, then national government, then the "market" or the "people") is served inside what St Augustine called the city of man, namely here on earth and through economic activity. In orthodox states salvation is attained rather by withdrawing – in a desert cave or monastery if you are religious or in small social networks if you are secular.
Work is a means for unholy enjoyment and is certainly not equated with spiritual salvation individual or collective. The Aristotelian view that the primary meaning of economics is the action of using things required for the good life (ie economy is not valuable in itself) is read together with the Orthodox Christian view that the only good life is the afterlife.
The Greek bourgeoisie, by evading taxation and thus sabotaging governmental authority, is ahead of western capitalists who achieve the same through elaborate offshore schemes. And the savaged people look suspiciously to occidental saints and secular do-gooders who are found – or would love to find themselves – not in caves but in places of power: from medieval Franciscan monks to modern marketers and their apologists like John Locke and Adam Smith but also their Marxist opponents for whom the materiality of anonymous masses is a source of salvation-power as supreme as that of the market god.
The bickering of Greek politicians goes hand in hand with the deep distrust of Greeks in their republic. Occidental governments have always been presumed to be legitimate but the Greek view of government remains partly Byzantine in the sense that accession to power is never quite effectively endorsed as blessed, rightful or just. Byzantine emperors were always suspected as usurpers of power: there was no imperial succession through blood and accession to power was explicitly the result of conflict or intrigue.
To make up for their lack of legitimacy, emperors claimed to also be priests but the ruse never quite worked as expected, leaving them with a permanent legitimacy deficit. Anyway, for the Orthodox fathers this word would not ever get better and those who wish to convince us they will make it so are suspect. The 400 years of absolutist Muslim and Ottoman rule that followed further entrenched the Greek suspicion of government.
In modern Greece, except for the rare occasions when a particularly charismatic politician first ran for office, elections at best produce a consensus that the winner must be left to rule for the time being but, just as it happened with......
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GUARDIAN Sun, 04 Dec 2011 00:06:14 GMT
Leveson inquiry into phone hacking should be put in context of the newspaper circulations that support media tittle-tattle
As we head into Leveson week four, a smidgen of context seems increasingly necessary. And, happily, brand new Ipsos Mori research findings for the National Readership Survey help provide it – opening windows in the Strand courtroom where (on one Times count) over 20 lawyers now spend their inquiring, objecting and fee-earning days.
You'd think, surveying this sea of silks and solicitors, that journalists – especially camera-wielding tabloid operators – constitute some kind of alien lifeform beamed down from Planet Zog. But just count the readers they serve.
The reviled Mail, Mirror, Express, Star and Sun have a total of 19,272,000 of them each day. The full-service quality press – Telegraph, Times, Guardian, Financial Times and Independent – have just 5,014,000. The Sun (7,652,000) can swallow that lot with millions to spare. Perhaps Lord Justice Leveson, who doesn't seem much of a newspaper-reading junkie himself, prefers the Economist (with its 597,000 UK readers)? That's more than the Independent (451,000) and many more than the FT (325,000). But it wilts when you start pulling glossy celebrity magazines off the newsagent's shelf.
Here's Richard Desmond's OK! (2,110,000) and Hello! (1,557,000). Here's steamy Heat (1,487,000, roughly the number of public service workers who struck on Wednesday) netting more per issue than the Times (1,435,000). Watch Closer (1,623,000) wallop the Daily Telegraph (1,584,000) and Chat (1,192,000 for "I had Christmas dinner with my lover as his fiancee's body rotted in the garage") leave the Guardian (1,119,000) behind. And we haven't even turned to Reveal, New!, Inside Soap and the rest yet – nor flicked a remote over to Channel 4 as the premiere of Desperate Scousewives (500,000 viewers) jostles Essex and Chelsea for sub-reality attention.
Anyone for the internet? We all know the Daily Mail online is a tearaway market leader there: 79 million unique visitors a month, a more than 4.5 million a day, growth rate of 58% in a year. We know that its crispest selling point is a compendium of paparazzi photos stacked head to bottom – and that the first thing that happened when it expanded overseas (now 51 million visitors) was that it hired two picture-buying scouts in Los Angeles.
Now: is any of this particularly cheering for lovers of serious journalism? Of course not. But it does, at least, define the great problem that exists far beyond the Strand, or the offices of the Press Complaints Commission. Celebrity chasing is big business, and very big international business. The American website competition for it, from TMZ to Perez Hilton, is huge. You may field a JK Rowling or a Sienna Miller to illustrate Leveson distress, but (as the FT revealed this week) the suede boot is on the other foot now as celebrities' agents pursue the press, waving photo opportunities.
Some of the nastiest practices revealed to the inquiry can be stopped by law (and actually have been). Some can be severely curtailed by PCC action (and have been, too). But paparazzi policing is a practically impossible challenge. If there's not a market here, there's one over there. Spain's newsagents' racks groan with intrusive snapping. France isn't pristine at all. It was Paris Match, remember, that snapped the Duchess of York having her toe sucked long ago. Italy is bunga-bunga land incarnate. US journalism may preen itself on its probity, restraint and truth: but that's because it doesn't count the scandal sheets on separate supermarket sale.
Britain's press has the good or bad luck to be geographically and demographically structured in a way that sets the Star and FT side by side, both thought of as "newspapers". It's a problem many journalists themselves can't cope with in terms of self-image or ethics. Yet, out there in another sort of real world, million upon million of British press readers –...
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GUARDIAN Sun, 04 Dec 2011 00:06:18 GMT
The BBC could have picked up Melvyn Bragg's arts documentary but didn't. So Sky Arts has stepped into the breach
The BBC could have picked up The South Bank Show (and its awards) when ITV dropped Melvyn Bragg's beloved baby three years ago, but didn't. Enter – much better late than never – Sky Arts, with a tripled budget and a new commitment to fund six of Melvyn's heavy duty, single-subject documentaries in 2012.
Lord Bragg talks about his new bosses at Sky Arts in a quite unaccustomed fashion. "They are a bunch of people very like the BBC in the 60s," he says: short lines of communication, quick decisions, manifest enthusiasm.
But hey! This is Murdoch world. You can feel lips curling. To which, in a circumspect way, you might add that News International's decision to keep the Times Literary Supplement going is a good deed in a murky landscape – and that without Fox Searchlight (and The Tree of Life, Crazy Heart and Black Swan among many others), moviegoers might soon find themselves on a pretty thin diet.
Melvyn Bragg
Sky Arts
Rupert Murdoch
Television industry
Peter Preston
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GUARDIAN Fri, 02 Dec 2011 23:00:51 GMT
Britain's economy may be on the brink, but it's boomtime at London's top-end restaurants. What's going on?
The economic condition of the UK can be simply put: it's mayhem out there. Although the recession has technically ended, the country is only beginning to crawl out of the pit into which it fell after the credit crunch. In the past three months, 1,400 people were becoming unemployed every day; one in every seven shops on the British high street is vacant. Unemployment stands at over 8% and confidence has been this low only three times in the past 40 years – but the other two times were in 1990 and 2008, when we were heading into a recession, not supposedly heading out of one.
And yet, if you live in central London, you could be forgiven for not noticing any of that. One of the things that happens to you if you write about restaurants – one of the reasons restaurant critics are the real heroes – is that whenever anyone has a grievance about any aspect of the business, they tell you about it. At the moment, what we critics are mainly responsible for is the fact that everywhere is full – everywhere in central London, that is. In the purest form of this lament, one I've heard four or five times, a couple gets a late-notice babysitter, excitedly makes plans for an impromptu dinner out, calls five restaurants in a row, gets knocked back by every one and ends up at the local Indian. Then they complain to me about it.
The grumblers aren't imagining things. I "have to" – in the special sense of that verb used by critics – eat out in new London restaurants regularly, and the single most striking thing about them is how amazingly full they always are. There is, right in the middle of the capital, an unmistakable boom in the high-end restaurant business, even as the rest of the country sinks further into gloom and inactivity. The trend is going to become even more marked, because a huge wave of big new openings is about to hit. Jeremy King and Christopher Corbin, creators of the Caprice, the Ivy and the Wolseley, and the most admired restaurateurs of their generation, are opening a big new restaurant called the Delaunay on Aldwych. The Russian restaurateur Arkady Novikov has opened not one but three restaurants in a huge single site in, yet again, Mayfair. The nice lads who run the Hawksmoor steak joints, Will Beckett and Huw Gott, have just opened an enormous new restaurant in Guildhall. That's open all day, as will be the huge new American restaurant Karpo in King's Cross (at time of writing, due to open any day now).
Richard Caring, the clothing magnate who owns a range of well-run fancy restaurants and clubs (Scott's, Annabel's, Soho House, among many others), has just opened 34, a swanky steakhouse in Mayfair. "Calling it a boom is probably slightly exaggerated," Caring says, but he does concede that "London restaurants are generally up on last year, which was up on the year before. Business is strong, and there's pressure on bookings, but it's not phenomenal." 34 is Caring's most expensive opening ever and he is super-bullish about the top end of the market: "If we were to find good sites, we would take them. That's how confident we are." It is an extraordinary flurry of activity for a country on the edge of a double-dip recession.
These places aren't cheap. Food guide Harden's performs a useful annual survey of trends in eating out, which reports that the average cost of a meal for two in London – three courses, wine, service – has gone through £90. That's a lot, and a lot more than people elsewhere in the country are willing to pay. In addition to his high-end places, Caring owns mid-market chain restaurants with branches outside London, including the 29-branch brasserie Côte. "It's well-priced and value for money, so it's doing well across the country, but the price point is different. People outside London will spend £20, or £22, or £25, but not £40." In addition, people outside London tend to save up their eating..
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GUARDIAN Fri, 02 Dec 2011 23:02:37 GMT
When you complain about new furniture, the big retailers send an independent expert to adjudicate. But are they 'independent'?
It is your first night sleeping in your new bed delivered by a top retailer. But you wake up next morning tired and exhausted – and the sleepless nights continue for weeks. Can you demand your money back – or, at the very least, force the retailer to send you a new bed?
Many of Britain's big furniture retailers are members of an independent industry-wide scheme that promises to handle disputes. Typically, an independent expert is despatched to assess whether your claim has merit, and chances are you will be sent a technician from FIRA, which says it is "the world's leading independent furniture technology centre".
This fast-growing, £20m-turnover organisation, based in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, operates the "Furniture Ombudsman" – described as offering impartial dispute resolution – on the industry's behalf, and a separate division, FIRA Service Technicians, which sends out its experts when customers complain.
The Technicians service is marketed to retailers and furniture-makers across the UK on the basis that it improves customer service and cuts the cost of having to replace items.
FIRA boasts on its website that its staff have a "90% success rate of 'kept in home' results … because, if it isn't kept in the home, there is a direct cost to the business". In other words, it is able to make sure the customer keeps the item in the overwhelming number of cases. Of course, in many instances, items can be repaired to the customer's satisfaction.
FIRA acknowledges that in many cases it does not charge the retailer or furniture manufacturer if the job is "unsuccessful" – ie, where the item has to be sent back. Some would argue that this represents a conflict of interest that may encourage the independent expert to find in favour of the company rather than the customer.
Sheila Burke (not her real name) had expected that when she complained about her new £1,600 bed – bought from a small local furniture store – the independent expert sent by the manufacturer would turn up with an open mind. Instead, she says he took one look at it and told her that, given the make, "there can't be anything wrong with it". After that, she claims, he didn't want to hear what she was saying. "The mattress was really uncomfortable, which is why I complained. But the man who turned up didn't appear to be interested in hearing my complaint at all," says Burke.
Katy Burton tells a similar story after she complained about a Silentnight mattress bought from a high street retailer. Staff there had, again, arranged for an independent inspector to go to her home. She claims: "He lay on it for maybe 10 seconds, agreed he could feel the problem, but made no notes or took no actions that seemed to assess the problem. He then rotated the mattress, chatted to me about his dog, and left." When she contacted the store she was told he had found nothing wrong.
In both cases the stores declined to replace or refund the mattress, citing the findings of the independent expert.
Burton, who lives in Manchester, was left nonplussed. "I couldn't believe a man lying on a mattress for 10 seconds, taking no notes and chatting about his dog qualified as a professional assessment. I was told his decision was final," she says.
After Guardian Money intervened the store gave Burton a generous discount on a better mattress, and she is now a happy customer. Burke, however, is still embroiled in a messy legal dispute which will be heard in the small claims court next week.
Last year, BBC's Watchdog reported on the case of Pam and Geoffrey Benge, who had paid a big-name store £4,200 for a three-piece suite. After only six months the armchair was broken.
An inspector sent by the store/manufacturer – it is not known whether they were from FIRA or not – concluded they had done the damage themselves. They then paid for an independent report by the........
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ECONOMIST Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:06:02 GMT
“SIX”, mutters the owner of Standard Broilers as he slips his hand out of a dead chicken and counts half a dozen mucky eggs from a pile into a bag in exchange for 21 rupees (40 cents). At the back of his reeking street stall, a cage full of half-alive birds watch. Food shopping in India is not a precious affair, even in Bandra, a posh suburb of Mumbai. German cars and $100 highlights are common here, but supermarkets are nowhere to be seen.Less than a tenth of India’s $450 billion of annual retail sales take place in “organised” shops resembling those of the rich world. But that could soon change. On November 24th the coalition government, led by the Congress party, said that in cities of over 1m folk, foreign firms could now own 51% of “multi-brand” retailers, such as supermarkets (up from zero), and 100% of single-brand chains (up from 51%).Its motives are benign. Facing a wobbly rupee and high inflation, it wants to show it is still capable of bold action to boost business confidence. Liberalisation should lower food prices by cutting out middle men and waste. Perhaps a third of crops rot on roadsides and in...
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ECONOMIST Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:06:02 GMT
THE darkest character in Joseph Heller’s dark novel, “Catch-22”, is Milo Minderbinder, a lowly mess officer who runs a huge business empire, M&M Enterprises, on the side. He flogs “surplus” army supplies, travels the world making deals and accumulating extravagant official titles (such as Caliph of Baghdad and Mayor of Cairo) and, in the spirit of popular capitalism, gives his fellow soldiers nominal shares in his ever-expanding business. M&M Enterprises almost crashes when the caliph-cum-mayor overextends himself by buying all the cotton in Egypt. There is so much of the stuff that he cannot get rid of it even by covering it in chocolate and serving it to the troops. The American government eventually steps in to solve his mounting problems: M&M Enterprises has grown too big to fail.Milo Minderbinder’s spirit is still alive in the land that almost destroyed him with its cotton. The Egyptian army has more on its hands than running armoured cars over people in Tahrir Square. It also runs about 10% of the economy. Military-backed companies produce cement, olive oil and household appliances as well as...
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