GUARDIAN Fri, 03 Feb 2012 21:00:01 GMT
New Quay, Ceredigion: You call this winter? With the predominantly yellow palette – hawkweed, tormentil, dandelion, ragwort, buttercups even – it glows like the sun
The headlands stretch out into the bay like so many huge, recumbent beasts. From the cliff-top path heading south I search among all these shades and striations in the grey for familiar forms from Cardigan Island almost to Ynys Enlli in the clearing sky over my right shoulder. There are robins jousting in song from among coconut-scented flowers of gorse. Stray flowers of thrift and campion have somehow survived winter-long. Dinas Head and Ynys Ddewi loom vague in a far distance. Down among striped currents, shoals of bladderwrack show shadowy maroon through thick sea green. Pennyroyal and young green nettle shoots add their quota of colour to a predominantly yellow palette: hawkweed, tormentil, dandelion, ragwort, buttercups even, and so much gorse.
You call this winter? It glows like the sun. There are goldcrests.....
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GUARDIAN Fri, 03 Feb 2012 21:00:03 GMT
The trouble with blaming the parents is that you risk blaming people who have coped far better than you would have
Margaret Thatcher's famous remark, "There is no such thing as society," is often quoted out of context. That's a shame because, in context, it is even more absurd than it appears when naked and alone. Thatcher offered her observation in 1987, during an interview with Woman's Own: "There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate." Yes, That's right. There is living tapestry, all woven together to make a big picture. Some people even call that picture "the big society", I hear.
Thatcher continues: "… we have these little innocents and the worst crime in life is when those children, who would.....
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GUARDIAN Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:54:16 GMT
Inquiry launched into appointment of Suzanne Greenaway, who did not meet requirement of five years' legal experience in UK
A judicial investigation has been launched into the appointment of the coroner who chaired Amy Winehouse's inquest, raising fears that the circumstances of the singer's death might need to be examined again.
The lord chief justice, Lord Judge, has referred concerns about the qualifications of Suzanne Greenaway – who conducted the hearing last October into the death of the 27-year–old performer – to the Office for Judicial Complaints (OJC).
Recording a verdict of misadventure last October, Greenaway said that Winehouse had died from alcohol poisoning after a drinking binge following abstinence.
But Greenaway, who has now resigned, did not have sufficient legal experience in the UK when she was appointed by her husband, Andrew Reid, who is the St Pancras coroner in north London.
Reid is writing to about 30 families whose relatives were the subject of........
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GUARDIAN Wed, 01 Feb 2012 19:30:01 GMT
Of course the stripping of Goodwin's knighthood leaves a hangover, but if it's the beginning of accountability, it's worth it
Even though I share the Scottish affection for Alex Salmond, one of my favourite quotes to emerge from the Fred Goodwin affair is from the letter of support that the SNP leader wrote to the banker on the occasion of RBS's ill-fated ABN Amro takeover: "Yours, for Scotland", he signed it, mistaking the escapade for an episode of Highlander.
There are no winners in this story, there are only degrees of loserdom – the RBS board wasn't paying attention (yet they still have their knighthoods) and the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority were practising their "light touch" (it is business-speak for "swing").
MPs might, in an ideal world, have been wondering what the downside may be of a bank whose asset sheet was greater than the nation's GDP, but they were too busy looking for the receipt for that Kit Kat because, never mind the John Lewis.......
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GUARDIAN Wed, 01 Feb 2012 19:59:39 GMT
In a New Statesman article, David Miliband launches a scathing attack on the political views of Neil Kinnock and Roy Hattersley, who backed his brother's leadership bid
David Miliband has exposed the rawness of his political and familial wounds with an attack on supporters of what he calls "Reassurance Labour" who gifted the leadership to his brother.
In a lengthy essay for the New Statesman, Miliband accused the group of a "seductive" approach that makes Labour feel comfortable about itself while making the party irrelevant.
The former foreign secretary names Roy Hattersley, the former deputy leader of the Labour party, as the head of the "Reassurance" group. But his real target is Neil Kinnock, the former party leader, who quoted a trade unionist telling him after Ed Miliband's victory as saying: "We've got our party back."
David Miliband believes his brother, who was supported by Kinnock, pandered to such thinking among trade unionists and traditionalists during the Labour...
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GUARDIAN Wed, 01 Feb 2012 20:31:33 GMT
National team players alleged to have taken bribes to throw matches played in Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand
Eighty Zimbabwean footballers have been suspended because of alleged involvement in Asian betting syndicates linked to match-fixing.
The country's sports minister said football was "riddled with corruption", and called for politics to be rooted out of the sport.
The players, including leading members of the national team, are alleged to have taken bribes to throw friendly matches between 2007 and 2009.
The Zimbabwe Football Association (Zifa) has set up an independent ethics committee to investigate the alleged fixing, which it believes took place when the national team played in Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand.
The games were not part of any competition. In fact, it is now suspected they were arranged specifically for the purpose of betting. The scandal has been dubbed "Asiagate" by the Zimbabwean press.
Jonathan Mashingaidze, chief executive of Zifa, told the........
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GUARDIAN Wed, 01 Feb 2012 20:32:00 GMT
The capital's young workforce and wealth of start-ups are behind last year's doubling in demand for office space for IT firms
Tech clusters are springing up all over London as international heavyweights including Google, Groupon and Facebook expand and scores of startups try to establish themselves.
Three weeks ago Spanish telecoms group Telefónica, which owns O2, chose Regent Street, central London, as the headquarters of its new global digital business. Telefónica Digital will take the fourth and fifth floors, totalling 51,000 sq ft, in the Crown Estate's Quadrant 3 development near Piccadilly Circus, which also contains a Whole Foods store and two restored 1930s Art Deco restaurants.
Matthew Key, chief executive of Telefónica Digital, said: "London is undoubtedly at the forefront of the current digital revolution and was a natural choice for us to establish our new headquarters in.
"London is arguably the biggest hub for technology startups outside Silicon Valley and a.......
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GUARDIAN Wed, 01 Feb 2012 20:38:12 GMT
Tales of Peter Crouch, David Beckham and a dig at a police officer as Spurs manager takes to stand in trial for tax evasion
Despite swapping the dugout at White Hart Lane for the witness box at Southwark crown court, Harry Redknapp turned in a characteristically plain-spoken performance , entertaining his tax evasion trial with cracks about Peter Crouch's height, attempting to turn the tables on the prosecutor, and shouting at a policeman to stop eyeballing him in court.
The 64-year-old Tottenham Hotspur manager began his evidence by telling the jury that he has always paid his tax – and would rather pay too much to the Inland Revenue than too little – but proceedings became increasingly heated as he was asked about the offshore bank account at the centre of the case.
The prosecution claims Redknapp opened the account in Monaco in 2002 so he could receive $145,000 (£93,100) from his then boss at Portsmouth, Milan Mandaric, to make up for money he was not paid when the club sold..
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GUARDIAN Wed, 01 Feb 2012 20:59:01 GMT
Woodnewton, Northamptonshire: The fields I cycle past are packed with the eight-foot-high milky brown miscanthus or 'elephant grass' – a mystery crop in Britain not so long ago
The countryside is packed with mysteries, and an afternoon bike ride through the villages of Southwick and Glapthorn under the cover of grey skies reveals some of them. While cycling along the hedge-bordered road, a pungent, mustardy scent is prevalent in the damp, still air, the same smell encountered when cutting up fresh cabbage leaves. It is an odour that I can recall from my childhood: when it was reeking from a sun-drenched field of cabbages that were being audibly ravaged by the clicking jaws of millions of large-white butterfly caterpillars. The undoubted source of today's brassica scent is over the hedge: the adjacent field has, like many in the vicinity, already got a covering of bluish green oilseed rape plants. A thin path winds across the field, marked out by the evidence of crushed leaves and..
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GUARDIAN Wed, 01 Feb 2012 21:30:02 GMT
Cams and Ozzy get tough with poor Hester and Fred the Shred
Cameron: OK, Ozzy, it's about time we sorted out these bankers' bonuses.
Osborne: Must we? How about we just say no one should get more than a mill?
Cameron: That sounds about right. It should stop the little people moaning. After all, It's hardly worth getting out of bed for that amount.
RBS: One million? That's a bloody insult. How are we going to look our mates in the eye?
Cameron: We all have to make sacrifices these days.
RBS: Oh, all right then. We'll just give Stephen Hester £960K.
Everyone: Let's get this straight. We own the bank, you've laid off hundreds of workers, the bank is still worth half what we paid for it and you need a million on top of your basic £1.2m salary or you'll down tools?
Hester: It's mine, all mine.
Milidee: At last an open goal that even I can't miss!
Cameron: Obviously it's with deep regret that we had to give Stephen his bung but it was out of our hands, guv.
Milidee: I shoot,...
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GUARDIAN Wed, 01 Feb 2012 21:30:03 GMT
David Cameron wants devo max for Britain in Europe. His fear of direct democracy will land us with the worst of both worlds
David Cameron may yet go down to history as the man who pushed Scotland away from England and England away from Europe. That would earn him a place in the schoolbooks, though not the one he might like. On both Scotland and the EU, his stance risks triggering a dynamic that he cannot control.
Blairishly brilliant at presentation, supremely self-confident, handling the premiership as if he had been born in 10 Downing Street, Cameron radiates firmness, charm and competence. Initially, I bought it. His politics are not mine, but I thought Britain could do worse than to have a competent, pragmatic, liberal conservative prime minister, in coalition with liberals. But as the months go by, as mistake has followed mistake – over the EU, Scotland, benefits reform, NHS reform – a still, small voice has been nagging in my ear: maybe he doesn't know what he's doing,......
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GUARDIAN Wed, 01 Feb 2012 13:40:04 GMT
Tottenham manager tells court he has usually paid more rather than less in tax and has always used the best accountants
The Tottenham Hotspur manager, Harry Redknapp, has told the jury trying him on allegations of tax evasion that he has always paid his taxes, and would rather overpay than underpay them.
Asked about his attitude to tax by his barrister, John Kelsey-Fry QC, Redknapp said: "I have always paid my tax. I have always gone to the best available people."
He said he employed a top London accounting firm to look after his financial affairs, adding: "I would rather pay too much tax than not enough tax."
Redknapp also told Southwark crown court that he had hit it off immediately with the former Portsmouth owner, Milan Mandaric, who is also accused of two counts of cheating the public revenue.
"We got on great from the first moment," said Redknapp, recalling their first meeting over a cup of tea at a New Forest hotel.
He described their relationship over recent years as..
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| Full List of United Kingdom articles |
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