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Last updated on Fri, 27 Nov 2009 - 23:00:18 - EST
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Top 10 technologies for the holiday season
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VNUNet All content (including blogs), Fri, 27 Nov 2009
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Iain Thomson and Shaun Nichols in San Francisco, V3.co.uk , Friday 27 November 2009 at 13:14:00 Great gadgets for getting through the family get-togethers With Thanksgiving upon us, we decided to count down some essential technologies for getting through not only Turkey Day, but all of the other inevitable family gatherings and festivities set to take place in the coming weeks. Holidays are uniquely stressful times. Anthropologists report that sources of conflict multiply whenever groups of people gather together, and the larger the group the more sources there are for potential disturbances. So here is a list of the best technologies to help you through this stressful time. Honourable Mention: Universal remote Shaun Nichols : More people in the house means more hands on the remote control, which means lost remotes are far more common over the holiday season. This only gets worse when you add more devices to the equation. Enter the universal remote, a handy little bit of gear that can control all your various boxes and devices at once. While they were first considered an exotic piece of gadgetry, these days universal controllers are fairly common, and most cable providers ship them as standard with your set-top box. If your family is the type to constantly flip through various programming, the universal remote can also be a powerful weapon. By taking control of the remote and keeping it in your pocket, you can keep others from changing the channel every time you get up and leave the room. (Particularly effective when you're trying to watch football in the presence of younger family members pining to watch more of the Sponge Bob Squarepants marathon.) Iain Thomson : There was a guilty pleasure for both of us in this one. The ability to reset the TV is a powerful tool. But, that said, the universal remote is a godsend. Not just for subverting the TV, but for dealing with the endless problems remotes have caused, i.e. where is the damn thing? The amount of time spent rummaging down the backs of sofas trying to find the remote control is huge, and highly frustrating. That said, I wanted this as an Honourable Mention only because setting the damn things up is a huge pain. Maybe someone like Apple could come up with a universal remote that automatically configures itself. Honourable Mention: Printable boarding passes Iain Thomson : Thanksgiving is the busiest time of the year at US airports, and anyone flying is bound to have a rough time of it. I've yet to meet anyone who enjoys flying over the Christmas period. As such it makes sense to reduce the potential for snafus, and minimise your impact on already rushed airline staff. Printing your own boarding pass and checking in online are an excellent way to do this. Of course, the systems aren't perfect and some airlines are still in the dark ages when it comes to the technology to allow you to do this. Nevertheless, if you can get the load lightened online, do it because it'll make life a little more pleasant for everyone and allow you to enjoy the piped musak that airport management seems to love so much. Shaun Nichols : If you're lucky enough to fly on an airline that allows online check-in and printable boarding passes, I highly recommend you take advantage. Going through the long security lines and navigating the huge crowds is bad enough, and any step you can take to get round this is welcome. Being able to skip the check-in counter can save valuable minutes and preserve valuable wits during one of the most stressful times of the year. If you're the type who enjoys a quick drink at the airport bar, it is also a great way to buy yourself a few extra minutes to wind down before having to cram yourself onto an plane for a long flight back home. 10. Public transport information Iain Thomson : This might seem like an odd one, but Thanksgiving in the US, and Christmas everywhere else, is a time to eat, drink and be merry. Unfortunately I've noticed that our American cousins seem a little more casual about having a drink or six and then getting behind the wheel of a car and driving home. Behaviour that would make you a social pariah in the UK is accepted here; maybe it's something to do with the lack of decent public transport. Nevertheless, having even one drink and trying to drive is not advised, and having more than one is downright dangerous. Trying to pilot a ton of metal at high speeds after a few drinks is not only ill-advised, it is dangerous for other people who might be on the road. So it's worthwhile bookmarking alternative transport options. If you live in the Bay area then 511.org is a good guide to public transport and almost all taxi firms can now be found online. Yes, it might cost a little more and be less convenient, but it's less bother than a coffin. Shaun Nichols : That's a bit of a cheap shot, Iain. Drinking and driving was laughed off in the past, but the US has recently got very strict about enforcing the laws, and those caught driving under the influence face harsh punishment. That said, there are still thousands of people who needlessly lose their lives over the holiday season due to drunk driving. These sorts of tragic events can easily be avoided if holiday revellers and those around them have the sense to find another way home. Using the web to book a cab, find a company to call, or look up public transit information can not only help friends and family stay out of trouble, it can save lives. Hopefully more people can take advantage of these services. 9. Online reference sites Shaun Nichols : If your family is anything like mine, gatherings spawn more petty arguments than a busy night at the local pub. Politics, sports, history, music - you name it and we argue about it. Fortunately, these days there is a plethora of sites dedicated to stockpiling the sort of useless information most families light-heartedly bicker over during the holidays. Sites such as Wikipedia , Snopes and FactCheck are all great ways to look up information and settle those arguments once and for all. Just be careful not to get too wrapped up in looking up information. My grandmother still hasn't forgiven us for the year when the apple pie went cold because we were all looking up baseball trivia after Thanksgiving dinner. Iain Thomson : When families and friends come together for the holidays, arguments are an essential part of letting off steam. Thankfully the internet has made these arguments a lot easier to handle. Whether it be heated discussions over the best footballer, the fastest Grand Prix driver or simply who first came up with the idea of sliced bread, the internet is your friend. 8. Recipe sites Iain Thomson : Holidays are traditionally the gorging season, and both Thanksgiving and Christmas are marked by orgies of gluttony that would make Calista Flockhart wake up screaming, or possibly salivating. However, one of the fun parts of this food-fest is watching conflicts between cooks. I've seen two family members almost come to blows over the correct ingredients for stuffing a turkey and the right way to baste the breast meat. Had I been able to channel their argument by going online for suggestions, it might have been a less tense meal. It's also worth remembering that holiday food is a new experience for a lot of people. There'll be a lot of students, for example, facing their first holiday away from home and looking to make something like Mummy used to. Rather than sobbing into your TV dinner you should check out information online and see whether you can do it better than she can. Shaun Nichols : The holidays are a great time for classic recipes and comfort foods, but they can also get a bit monotonous when you have the same boring stuff year after year. I'm all for anything that saves me from having to eat another helping of canned yams topped with stale marshmallows. There are countless web sites out there which offer not only new and original recipes, but tasty variations on old favourites. Granted, there is no replacement for your grandmother's stuffing or those awesome green beans mom makes with the little sliced almonds, but other dishes could definitely make use of some great online recipes. Perhaps this year you should try garlic mashed potatoes, or maybe a new approach to your casserole will save the embarrassment of having to carry home a full dish. 7. Medical/safety advice sites Shaun Nichols : We figured that this needed to go with the online recipe sites. If you are going to try out that new trout and chive mousse recipe on your closest family members, the least you can do is also have some information on treating food poisoning handy. Holidays are always a time for bumps, burns and other minor injuries. With so many people working in the kitchen and so many young children running around, it's almost inevitable. Being able effectively to treat a minor injury can help to ease the stress on everyone in the house. On a more serious note, interest in alternative ways of cooking turkey, particularly the deep fry method, has been the bane of fire departments around the country in recent years. If you are going to try such a method, be sure to read up on safety measures . Iain Thomson : I wanted this listing in here because anyone who's unfortunate enough to have tasted some holiday food can recognise the need. Since coming to the US I've been exposed to some horrible dishes. Sweet potato and marshmallow bake is one, chocolate-covered bacon is another. There's something about the holiday season that brings out the worst in cooks. As food production heads towards industrial scales we all need to be a lot more careful about what we put in our mouths. Getting knowledgeable about our food intake is a must to. 6. Travel information Iain Thomson : As we've mentioned, travel is an essential part of the holiday season, so you need to be informed. This is particularly important for travellers in snowier climes. Fliers need to know about their airport arrival and departure status, since nothing dampens the holiday spirit more than sitting on uncomfortable seating surrounded by screaming children. Traffic reports are also a godsend for motorists. There are already a lot of good sites out there for avoiding jams, but we're going to see huge improvements next year. Nokia and others are working on making smartphones into miniature traffic managers which report on conditions in real time. They won't eliminate jams, but will certainly help to avoid them. Shaun Nichols : As the recession drags on, travel sites are becoming increasingly popular for their bargain-hunting features. For many, being able to swing a deal on a ticket is the difference between staying at home and spending the holidays with loved ones. In addition to the 'browse and compare' services, many airlines, hotels and car rental companies now offer exclusive deals for online buyers. Booking over the web not only saves time, it can save you a few bucks too. As Iain pointed out, web services are also useful for tracking flight status and traffic issues. There really is no way of avoiding the jams and delays of holiday travel, but having an idea of what you will be facing ahead of time can really take the edge off. 5. Gaming consoles Shaun Nichols : Once the scourge of family gatherings worldwide, the advent of family and social games, particularly the Nintendo Wii, has made consoles the perfect way to get everyone together on the holidays. A big part of it is accessibility. While consoles used to be exclusively marketed at one or two players, usually children or gaming enthusiasts, a growing crop of titles are designed to appeal to large groups of people and those who don't normally play. The Wii is a particularly good example. Because the console uses motion controls and simple movements to play, rather than pressing buttons in the right order at the right time, parents and grandparents can easily pick up and genuinely enjoy playing video games. Iain Thomson : Shaun and I debated long and hard as to whether to just put the Wii as a point here, but I hate advertising so we went for generic consoles. That said, the Wii is a marvellous device and the best of its breed in this area. The look of glee on little CJ's face when she beat me at Mario Cart was a joy to behold (how often does a six-year old get to humiliate an adult?) and the appeal of such platforms is intergenerational. My godmother actually asked for Wii accessories last Christmas, and I suspect a lot of Thanksgiving families will spend time bowling, boxing or playing tennis around the TV this holidays. Yes, it's hard to imagine granny getting into beating up a hooker in Grand Theft Auto , but there are plenty of family-friendly games out there. Whoever said technology was isolating missed the past few years of console gaming. 4. Laptops Iain Thomson : The holidays may well be a time for families to join together in peace and harmony but, if you're anything like me, time alone is also a requirement. Getting away from the hordes of relatives can relieve a lot of stress and family rows. There's also the fact that many of us don't want to be offline for the whole holiday. Many people, myself included, get a bit twitchy if we can't check our emails every few days, and there's also those last minute emails to people who can't be there with you. Bear in mind that, if all of you are meeting at one house, there aren't going to be enough computers to go around, so packing a laptop might be a good idea, and even a 3G card to go with it just in case your host hasn't yet discovered the joys of Wi-Fi. Shaun Nichols : I would have to add security as another reason to bring your own laptop or netbook. Some older relatives may not have a computer at all, while others may have a computer so poorly maintained and infected that you don't feel comfortable entering any sort of personal information. Most of the items on this list require web access, and many of them make use of e-commerce components. As much as I love my friends and relatives, I would never in a million years enter my credit card or bank account information onto their home computers. With the prevalence of key-loggers and other malware infections running rampant, and identity theft expected to soar to record levels this season, bringing your own laptop on your travels is looking like a better and better idea. 3. GPS Shaun Nichols : Sometimes the trip to grandmother's house can be a bit like "over the river and through the woods, past the bridge, and by the underpass, and back over the river, and into the gas station, and onto the interstate ..." While most people can find their way to an old family house with few problems, those spending Thanksgiving and other celebrations at the home of a friend, in-law or recently moved family member can have a tougher time of it. Fortunately, in-car GPS systems are cheap and prevalent these days. If you're making a road trip or heading into an unfamiliar area, navigations systems are worth their weight in gold, particularly when the car is full of restless children. If you're renting a car, it's almost a no-brainer to opt for a GPS system. The holidays are stressful enough without having to fret over how you're getting to where it is you're going. Iain Thomson : I have to admit to more than a little suspicion about GPS systems. Yes, they are incredibly useful, but whatever happened to the old skill of map reading? Granted, I'm not that good at it (leading our Army unit down the wrong side of a Welsh mountain is still a shameful memory) but what happens when you lose power? That said, GPS is a great boon to civilisation. It's said, rightly in some cases, that men would rather die than ask for directions. Now we don't have to. GPS does the job very well. What worries me is that we are going to become too dependent on such systems. Then again, going down endless wrong turns is slightly worse. 2. Photo sharing sites Iain Thomson : I was a bit unsure about this one, but Shaun seemed very keen and the more I think about it the more it makes sense. If you can't be with the ones you love, then the next best thing is to send them a photo of what they are missing. It's always good to see other people and, if you can't do it in person, sharing a picture is as good as it's going to get. There are a lot of sites to choose from, such as Flickr, but social networking web pages can also be a good place to share. I keep up with the lives of my friends in other countries via such sites, and it always brings a smile to the face to see a good chum making a complete idiot of himself while someone else captures it for posterity. However, with that in mind, please be discreet in what you post. Employers and others are taking an increasing interest in the material people post online, and a future boss might not view that hilarious shot of you with the bottle of Jim Beam with the same fond memories as others. Shaun Nichols : It used to be that one or two family members would take pictures of the family gatherings, drop the film off to be developed and then mail out the printed photos to everyone a few weeks later. With the advent of digital cameras, however, the process has become much simpler. But there can be complications. Emailing large files to dozens of people can take a long time, and most of us know better than to add our family members to our Facebook or MySpace accounts. That's where photo sharing services such as Flickr or Picasa come in. After collecting all your holiday photos, you can simply upload them from your computer, phone or camera directly to the web site. From there, you can tag and organise photos, then get a simple URL to share with everyone. For those with older relatives who don't own a computer, there are also a number of sites which allow you to print and directly mail photos or create specialised prints, albums and calendars. Not only can you preserve the holidays for your relatives, you can knock out a bit of your gift shopping. 1. Digital video recorder Shaun Nichols : The National Football League is planning to show three games on Thanksgiving this year. Combine this with time to cook, eat and mingle with family members, and you have a very solid case for investing in a digital video recorder (DVR). Even if you're not a football fan, DVRs are worth the cost for Thanksgiving. Aside from sports and some cheesy holiday specials, TV on the holidays can stink out loud, and when you're done eating, washing dishes and reminiscing with the family, sometimes it's nice to wind down and watch a good movie or television programme. Saving some quality content onto your DVR ahead of time can save you from having to spend that time watching another screening of Home Alone or the non-stop loop of A Christmas Story . Iain Thomson : One of the great similarities between Christmas in the UK and Thanksgiving in the US is that TV companies pile on all the programmes. I can still remember the family arguments over watching The Great Escape over the Queen's Speech at Christmas, and Thanksgiving is no different. Thankfully the invention of the video recorder stifled some of these conflicts, but the DVR is even better. At last there's a technology that allows all those family rows to be consigned to history. We can simply record what we like and watch it at our leisure. The TV companies hate this because it disrupts their business plans, but the fact of the matter is that technology has made those business plans redundant and made life a whole lot better for the rest of us.
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Dubai World: What it owns in Britain
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The Guardian World latest, Fri, 27 Nov 2009
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The markets plunged following news of Dubai World's debt crisis, but how far does the company's reach extend in Britain? Dubai World, the emirate's main investment company whose debt crisis has caused alarm worldwide , boasts on its website: "The sun never sets on Dubai World." Its businesses range from operating ports to real estate. Through its Istithmar subsidiary, Dubai World has a range of real estate investments in the UK including the Turnberry Resort in Scotland, the golf course that hosted this year's Open Championship. Last year it bought the Metropole Building and 10 Whitehall Place in London from the Crown Estate. It also owns Grand Buildings, Trafalgar Square and the Adelphi office building in the Strand in London. On the port side, the state-owned company's Dubai Ports World subsidiary operates container terminals at Tilbury, near London, and Southampton. It owns P&O, and is the third-largest port operator in the world. Regeneration projects include Chelsea Harbour, Regent Quarter at King's Cross, London Gateway Terminal and Shell Haven. Elsewhere, Dubai World is developing the V&A Waterfront in South Africa, Canada's Vancouver Terminal as well as the Dubai Waterfront, the Palm Trilogy islands with over 100 luxury hotels, and Jumeirah Golf Estates in Dubai. Market turmoil Dubai Global economy Global recession Julia Kollewe guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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Being Katie Price
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The Guardian Guardian Unlimited Books, Fri, 27 Nov 2009
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Katie Price attracts vicious attention in the press, but the fact is that an awful lot of people like her. Perhaps it's because – despite all the makeup and surgery – she is almost entirely without artifice. By Zoe Williams What did Katie Price expect from her stint on I'm a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out Of Here? She, more than anyone, knows how this weird show works. She would have known that it's basically a popularity contest, with all the savagery of a high-school prom queen election, but none of the day-to-day insights. She must have been aware of her public image, a gaudy patchwork of overpaid (she was on £350,000 for the show, all the others were on £65,000), over-endowed, overexposed, over-easy, just . . . over. And yet, on she went, banging the drum for, er, independence and overpayment, apparently surprised that anyone hated her at all, let alone that they hated her so much they would make her eat bugs seven times in a row. I would say, and not just to cheer her up, that the people who engage seriously with reality TV, to the point where they will vote one way or another, are horrible people. Nasty, prejudiced people who hate women, who hate black women even more, but will take a break from their race hate to mete out weird punishment to women who get "above themselves". With Price, it's obvious why those who hate her, hate her. She is insufficiently humble. But what if you don't hate her? What if you sort-of love her? What are you supposed to do with that? Periodically, Katie Price – more often as Jordan, her breasty alter-ego – will be held up as a symbol, the apotheosis, maybe, of the direction that mainstream culture has taken over the last two decades. She appears to believe that fame is a reasonable pursuit for its own sake, like the aberrant modern children you hear about at the annual headteachers' conference. She has no particular talent (or so you might hear – she's pretty good-looking, so right off the bat she is as talented as, say, Orlando Bloom), and therefore embodies the something-for-nothing, I-want-what's-mine-even-though-it-isn't-mine, shrill grabbiness of nowadays. She colludes with – no, encourages – the commodification of her body, values it out by the pound to whoever pays the most in whatsoever state of undress, and this makes her a very neat icon of raunch culture, which nobody knows what to do with: are you Melanie Philips, and find it immoral, the lack of modesty, of purity? Are you Ariel Levy (New Yorker magazine, hot third-wave feminist), and find it a tragic betrayal of the women's movement? Don't know? Somewhere in between? Never mind – at least you're not Price. At least you don't embody all this. Well, she might embody these values, but I'm sure loads of other people do too. She might be a role model, a bad one – who cares? There's never any shortage of good-looking young women who people can give a kicking for not setting a good enough example to other good-looking young women. She has been singled out for this part because she's very durable, and you can trust even very clueless people, who don't read OK! magazine, to know who she is. But she is also unusual, magnetic. She has a sullen, determined intelligence; she doesn't seem like a straightforward celebrity, more like a fictional celebrity from an American dystopian novel. Alive with a lust for money totally out of proportion to its material import, confident of her abilities beyond not just what they amount to, but what anybody's abilities could amount to, she strikes me as a cross between Alan Sugar and Damien Hirst. Only more of all that, and then some. I interviewed her once, in the house she shared with Peter Andre, when her son Harvey was five, their son Junior was nearly two, and she was pregnant with their daughter (Princess . . . I'm not even going to check the spelling of her second name. It's not a name, it's a Scrabble hand). The two dogs, whose custody is now contested, were in a crate in the hall. "Puppies!" I said, excited, and she looked at me, distrustfully. I honestly believe she thought I was talking about her breasts. "Oh, them," she said. "They're Pete's." We walked into her kitchen, where there were full-length photographic portraits of her and Andre, in their wedding outfits. It was all pink, pink, pink, like the wedding itself, which you'll no doubt remember had prancing white horses and such. It was a huge, lunatic confection of femininity, while Price herself is unnervingly hard-boiled, businesslike and canny. You could be watching Gordon Brown do a burlesque dance where he splashes out of a giant martini glass. She is relentlessly ambitious, tirelessly competitive. She was talking about cracking America. "There are so many people who say I'm going to go to America and I'm going to crack this and there's always some bullshit story in the English press – 'I'm going to America, I've been offered this deal and that deal.' And most of it is in their dreams, it's a pile of shit. I don't think I've seen or heard of any of them. Like Jennifer Ellison was off to be a Hollywood actress. Shit. We're the only couple, me and Pete, the only couple . . . The only other couples I know are Tess and Vernon [Daly and Kay], Richard and Judy, but they only do presenting. Me and Pete, I do my modelling, my jewellery, we do our music." And then, in case I haven't got it: "They only do one thing – we do a wide variety of things." It's impossible to tell, a lot of the time, how she gets from one topic to the next, except for this bridge – you see those other people? They are shit. "I don't believe in just taking pictures with a group of disabled kids just to get my picture in the papers," she said, straight afterwards. "Which is what a lot of people do. Look at [boy band] McFly. They did a song all about the tsunami. Did [the money] really go to the people who needed it? Let me see, if any of those bands were to do a whole charity album. And dedicate the whole album to charity. Me and Pete are the only people I know who've done that." I'm aware that I'm not making her sound very likeable, but she is. She seems to me to be almost totally honest: a straight person, never sugar-coated, as arrogant in pursuit of her own interests as a charging hog, but not arrogant in any important way, not arrogant like a liar. When people talk about Posh Spice, and they try to sidestep the fact that she's basically a consort, that they're gossiping about a consort like it's the 50s, by calling her a "businesswoman". That is not so: lending your name to a perfume or an underpant, saying "yes" to something that makes a lot of money, is not what business regularly entails. Katie Price is a businesswoman. There are all these things you wouldn't be aware of, and there's no reason why you would be, but there's a business here: horsey books for 12-year-olds; autobiographies (you make a lot of money from books, she told me. She could live just off the books. I asked how much they were worth, and she said, "I don't talk about money, it's not attractive"); website after website; tits for the grown-ups; beauty tips for the other grown ups; ponies and bows for the children; hair products; underwear; bedding; more tits. Her life is a riot of money-making venture. When she was talking about world domination, I got this mental image of her as a Robert Crumb cartoon, sending off one breast to cover China, a leg to do America, carving herself up like an enterprise, a military magazine. I look at this entrepreneurial drive, this slightly resentful energy, and feel like it should be interpreted (deprived childhood? Nope. Used to be ugly? Not at all), but really, why? You don't interpret Warren Buffett. You'd never ask, "Why, Alan Sugar, why do you care about making more?" This eye for a deal, this zeal for money, it's what some people have as well as a pulse; it's what shows they're still alive. She has actually had a much more troubled decade than the bows and horses and cash and even divorce would have you believe. There are always veiled remarks in the tabloids about her oldest son, Harvey, who is blind and also on the autistic spectrum – you constantly see it reported in the tabloids that she went to such and such a place with the younger two, while Harvey was "with a nanny". It's totally bogus, all this: she seemed to me to have a perfectly normal, ideal family setup for a person with a job and three kids, one of whom has special needs. She has a nanny, but also her mother, I get the impression, practically lives with her, and there's a much younger sister who is very much part of the household. Joan Crawford (circa Mommie Dearest) she ain't. Before she met Andre, she spent six weeks in Hugh Hefner's Playboy – what, Mansion? Hutch? – and her mum lived in a hotel round the corner all that time, looking after Harvey. She herself plays down this prosaic aspect, this side of herself that is just a person in the world, making things work, even if that means weird arrangements where she'll go to the Playboy Mansion but only if her mum is round the corner. It's not very glamorous, I suppose. Maybe it dents the franchise. But it's not all celebrity blarney, her mother-shtick, some of it is difficult, even more difficult than a regular life, and can't be delegated. I think this shows in her; I think it's part of why people like her. But mostly, it's the lack of artifice. You ask why she does whatever she does, and the answer is almost always, Look at the money! Look at the cash on that deal! But the pride she takes in it, the raw celebration of achievement, the lack of dribbly integrity-speak, the vim . . . it adds up to something. There's something about her sense of purpose that is nearly awesome. I suppose you could say the same for Alan Sugar, for Damien Hirst. But I don't really feel it. Katie Price I'm a Celebrity ... Women Zoe Williams guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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Winter Savings Abound at the Renaissance St. Louis Hotel Airport
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PRWeb Lifestyle, Fri, 27 Nov 2009
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Holiday and winter travel savings have never been as good as they are now thanks to the exclusive Winter Savings promotion currently underway at the Renaissance St. Louis Hotel Airport. (PRWeb Nov 27, 2009) Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/11/prweb3264164.htm
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Cities make their 2018 pitches as World Cup bid leaves politics behind
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The Guardian Guardian Unlimited Football, Fri, 27 Nov 2009
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• Wembley meeting key to technical aspect of overall bid • Bid team welcome move away from boardroom infighting When England fans contemplate the prospect of a World Cup on home soil, they perhaps conjure images of Jack Wilshere slotting home against Brazil at a packed Old Trafford. It is unlikely that they drift away into quite the same reverie picturing spiteful boardroom spats between ageing men in suits, rows over Mulberry handbags and a failure to form a consensus behind a bid that has everything else going for it. For the first time in a long time, the England 2018 bid team was yesterday at least able to try to focus on the former rather than the latter. "Over the next few months, as we pull together our technical bid, we have a fantastic story to tell that none of our rivals can compete with if we get this right," Andy Anson, the bid's chief executive, said after another bruising week that included the resignation of the Premier League chairman, Sir Dave Richards, from the board and ended with a last-minute race to get contracts signed between the stadiums and their councils. With varying degrees of fanfare – Plymouth did it in a hot air balloon carrying the Olympic diver Tom Daley, Liverpool's delegation having just received the news that Everton's plans for a proposed new stadium in Kirkby had been knocked back by the government – the 15 cities bidding to become one of 10 hosts for the 2018 World Cup yesterday trooped up Olympic Way to Wembley Stadium, where they hope the 2018 final will take place, to deliver their bids. The host city bidding process, overseen by the Football League chairman, Lord Mawhinney, was conceived as an attempt to get local media and fans engaged in the process early and to open out the selection process beyond the usual suspects. The bidders all jumped through the necessary hoops – recruiting local celebrities as ambassadors, corralling schoolchildren into photo-shoots and producing glossy promotional videos. Newcastle/Gateshead took the prize for the most star-studded delegation, bringing Paul Gascoigne, Alan Shearer, Peter Beardsley and David Ginola. The enthusiasm of overseas players for English football will be a key theme of the campaign. "I have never heard a Frenchman speaking so passionately about English football. It was a real eye opener," Anson said of Ginola. While succeeding in generating some enthusiasm for the bid across the country, the process has also faced criticism for being overly bureaucratic, costing too much and forcing Liverpool's, Manchester's and London's iconic cathedrals of football to compete with proposed new grounds in Plymouth and Bristol. Despite severe pressure on public spending, cities have had to commit to contributing £250,000 to the campaign and underwrite their bids to the tune of £350m. There is a certain amount of incredulity in some cities that they are having to bid at all. As a spokesman for Liverpool city council said: "The idea of staging a World Cup in England and not having any matches in Liverpool, with the football heritage we have, is unthinkable." But others believe it has been a useful exercise in forcing regional development bodies, councils and clubs to co-operate and nail down the detail of their bids. Portsmouth, which dropped out of the bidding just days before its application was due to be submitted, hit out at the level of guarantees that are required, claiming that the goalposts had moved during the bidding process. In their case, it was likely that local politics and a football club in flux were equally important factors. However, organisers would argue that once the decision had been taken to hold a bidding process, there had to be a level playing field. It has led to imaginative entries that could take the tournament to every corner of the country, including Plymouth, Bristol, Leicester and Milton Keynes. Anson confirmed that geographical spread, ensuring the tournament is not concentrated in London or the north-west, would be an important criterion. "The rationale was to identify as many options as possible. The competition has encouraged the councils, the clubs and the stadium owners to get to this position much more quickly than they otherwise would have done," Anson said. For the bid it means that much of the burden of ensuring stadiums comply with Fifa's exacting criteria and underwriting significant financial guarantees is taken on by the cities, thus removing risk from both the FA and the government, which itself has to underwrite £300m worth of guarantees around security, transport, visas and other issues. "By the time the Fifa inspectors come over at the end of August we need to have a solution that everyone buys into and is 100% credible. I think we can come up with an option that no other bidder can compete with," Anson said, clearly relieved to be talking about the detail of the bid rather than boardroom conflict. Stadiums must have usable capacities of at least 40,000 (meaning a total of around 45,000 once dead seats are taken into account) and meet a series of exacting criteria including regulations about the amount of space around the ground, provision for fan parks, media and so on. None of the stadiums submitted yesterday already meet the criteria, but all have promised to do so if selected. The amount of space required around the ground will be more of an issue for some than others – the Emirates Stadium and St James' Park, for example, will have to come up with alternative accommodation for hospitality and fan parks. In Liverpool, that will mean using Stanley Park. Cities will also be tested on hotel provision, transport plans and so on. Lord Mawhinney's panel, which also includes Anson, the chief operating officer, Simon Johnson, and the technical director, Ian Riley, who has visited each bidding city at least twice, will mark each bid against 23 selection categories and 95 individual criteria. The exacting criteria jar slightly with the uncomfortable truth that some of the stadiums being proposed are a long way from getting off the drawing board. Of the three venues in Liverpool's bid, one was this week refused planing permission and another is a long way from being financed, let alone built. The Olympic Stadium is still the object of a fierce debate about whether it should retain a capacity that would enable it to make the final list. Once the winning cities, expected to number between 10 and 12 and account for up to 18 stadiums, are chosen on 16 December, it will put England's technical bid a long way ahead of its rivals. The final technical bid needs to be lodged by April, ahead of the deciding vote for the 2018 and 2022 tournaments in December 2010. Thanks to the revolution in English football that flowed from the Hillsborough tragedy and the subsequent Taylor Report, which provided public money for stadium upgrades, and the ongoing investment by the biggest clubs in making their grounds more comfortable and family friendly, there is little doubt that England's bid will have the most impressive list of existing host venues when bids are submitted in May. The timing of yesterday's staging post, and next week's pivotal trip to South Africa when the England team will come face to face with other bidders for the first time at the World Cup draw, could yet turn out to be a blessing. There is a large degree of anger within the game, and among many working on the bid, that the petty internal politics of English football threaten to undermine the best chance of bringing the World Cup to England since 1966. England's wobbling bid can ill-afford any more largely self-inflicted damage. Next week they will head for South Africa with David Beckham in tow. Yesterday was, they hope, where the corner starts to be turned. Lord Coe, who saw the bid for the 2012 Olympics coalesce around a coherent vision and a solid team spirit following a shaky start and is now one of just six 2018 board members, said yesterday: "A prerequisite of any successful bid is that people sing from the same hymn sheet. This is not brain surgery, this is what we have to do." World Cup 2018 Owen Gibson guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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2018 World Cup bid leaves politics behind
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The Guardian Guardian Unlimited Sport, Fri, 27 Nov 2009
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• Wembley meeting key to technical aspect of overall bid • Bid team welcome move away from boardroom infighting When England fans contemplate the prospect of a World Cup on home soil, they perhaps conjure images of Jack Wilshere slotting home against Brazil at a packed Old Trafford. It is unlikely that they drift away into quite the same reverie picturing spiteful boardroom spats between ageing men in suits, rows over Mulberry handbags and a failure to form a consensus behind a bid that has everything else going for it. For the first time in a long time, the England 2018 bid team was yesterday at least able to try to focus on the former rather than the latter. "Over the next few months, as we pull together our technical bid, we have a fantastic story to tell that none of our rivals can compete with if we get this right," Andy Anson, the bid's chief executive, said after another bruising week that included the resignation of the Premier League chairman, Sir Dave Richards, from the board and ended with a last-minute race to get contracts signed between the stadiums and their councils. With varying degrees of fanfare – Plymouth did it in a hot air balloon carrying the Olympic diver Tom Daley, Liverpool's delegation having just received the news that Everton's plans for a proposed new stadium in Kirkby had been knocked back by the government – the 15 cities bidding to become one of 10 hosts for the 2018 World Cup yesterday trooped up Olympic Way to Wembley Stadium, where they hope the 2018 final will take place, to deliver their bids. The host city bidding process, overseen by the Football League chairman, Lord Mawhinney, was conceived as an attempt to get local media and fans engaged in the process early and to open out the selection process beyond the usual suspects. The bidders all jumped through the necessary hoops – recruiting local celebrities as ambassadors, corralling schoolchildren into photo-shoots and producing glossy promotional videos. Newcastle/Gateshead took the prize for the most star-studded delegation, bringing Paul Gascoigne, Alan Shearer, Peter Beardsley and David Ginola. The enthusiasm of overseas players for English football will be a key theme of the campaign. "I have never heard a Frenchman speaking so passionately about English football. It was a real eye opener," Anson said of Ginola. While succeeding in generating some enthusiasm for the bid across the country, the process has also faced criticism for being overly bureaucratic, costing too much and forcing Liverpool's, Manchester's and London's iconic cathedrals of football to compete with proposed new grounds in Plymouth and Bristol. Despite severe pressure on public spending, cities have had to commit to contributing £250,000 to the campaign and underwrite their bids to the tune of £350m. There is a certain amount of incredulity in some cities that they are having to bid at all. As a spokesman for Liverpool city council said: "The idea of staging a World Cup in England and not having any matches in Liverpool, with the football heritage we have, is unthinkable." But others believe it has been a useful exercise in forcing regional development bodies, councils and clubs to co-operate and nail down the detail of their bids. Portsmouth, which dropped out of the bidding just days before its application was due to be submitted, hit out at the level of guarantees that are required, claiming that the goalposts had moved during the bidding process. In their case, it was likely that local politics and a football club in flux were equally important factors. However, organisers would argue that once the decision had been taken to hold a bidding process, there had to be a level playing field. It has led to imaginative entries that could take the tournament to every corner of the country, including Plymouth, Bristol, Leicester and Milton Keynes. Anson confirmed that geographical spread, ensuring the tournament is not concentrated in London or the north-west, would be an important criterion. "The rationale was to identify as many options as possible. The competition has encouraged the councils, the clubs and the stadium owners to get to this position much more quickly than they otherwise would have done," Anson said. For the bid it means that much of the burden of ensuring stadiums comply with Fifa's exacting criteria and underwriting significant financial guarantees is taken on by the cities, thus removing risk from both the FA and the government, which itself has to underwrite £300m worth of guarantees around security, transport, visas and other issues. "By the time the Fifa inspectors come over at the end of August we need to have a solution that everyone buys into and is 100% credible. I think we can come up with an option that no other bidder can compete with," Anson said, clearly relieved to be talking about the detail of the bid rather than boardroom conflict. Stadiums must have usable capacities of at least 40,000 (meaning a total of around 45,000 once dead seats are taken into account) and meet a series of exacting criteria including regulations about the amount of space around the ground, provision for fan parks, media and so on. None of the stadiums submitted yesterday already meet the criteria, but all have promised to do so if selected. The amount of space required around the ground will be more of an issue for some than others – the Emirates Stadium and St James' Park, for example, will have to come up with alternative accommodation for hospitality and fan parks. In Liverpool, that will mean using Stanley Park. Cities will also be tested on hotel provision, transport plans and so on. Lord Mawhinney's panel, which also includes Anson, the chief operating officer, Simon Johnson, and the technical director, Ian Riley, who has visited each bidding city at least twice, will mark each bid against 23 selection categories and 95 individual criteria. The exacting criteria jar slightly with the uncomfortable truth that some of the stadiums being proposed are a long way from getting off the drawing board. Of the three venues in Liverpool's bid, one was this week refused planing permission and another is a long way from being financed, let alone built. The Olympic Stadium is still the object of a fierce debate about whether it should retain a capacity that would enable it to make the final list. Once the winning cities, expected to number between 10 and 12 and account for up to 18 stadiums, are chosen on 16 December, it will put England's technical bid a long way ahead of its rivals. The final technical bid needs to be lodged by April, ahead of the deciding vote for the 2018 and 2022 tournaments in December 2010. Thanks to the revolution in English football that flowed from the Hillsborough tragedy and the subsequent Taylor Report, which provided public money for stadium upgrades, and the ongoing investment by the biggest clubs in making their grounds more comfortable and family friendly, there is little doubt that England's bid will have the most impressive list of existing host venues when bids are submitted in May. The timing of yesterday's staging post, and next week's pivotal trip to South Africa when the England team will come face to face with other bidders for the first time at the World Cup draw, could yet turn out to be a blessing. There is a large degree of anger within the game, and among many working on the bid, that the petty internal politics of English football threaten to undermine the best chance of bringing the World Cup to England since 1966. England's wobbling bid can ill-afford any more largely self-inflicted damage. Next week they will head for South Africa with David Beckham in tow. Yesterday was, they hope, where the corner starts to be turned. Lord Coe, who saw the bid for the 2012 Olympics coalesce around a coherent vision and a solid team spirit following a shaky start and is now one of just six 2018 board members, said yesterday: "A prerequisite of any successful bid is that people sing from the same hymn sheet. This is not brain surgery, this is what we have to do." World Cup 2018 Owen Gibson guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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Is Brad Pitt's Dubai dream in ruins?
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The Guardian Guardian Unlimited Film news, Fri, 27 Nov 2009
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There's trouble in paradise – and Brad could suffer because of it Lost in Showbiz was almost too upset to come to the keyboard to type this, but I'm afraid there's horrid news from the paradise that is Dubai. By paradise, I mean, of course, a Middle Eastern helldorado built by modern-day slaves, boasting a dismal human rights record, and unconstrained by such nuisances as democracy. And as I say, there's trouble in it. Specifically, the emirate finds itself financially embarrassed, its economy buckling under vast debt, with work having ground to a halt on projects such as that man-made archipelago in the shape of the map of the world. Are you feeling strong enough to go on? Because celebrities might suffer as a result of this. The Beckhams and various Premier League footballers with property in the area have been touted as potential losers, though this column is far more desperate for news of Brad Pitt's plans to design a luxury Dubai hotel. Remember that? As befits one half of the world's hottest human rights spokescouple, architect manque Brad last year accepted a commission to get some of those migrant Afghans ghettoed out in the desert to throw up an 800-room "eco-resort" to his designs. (Warning: may not have been exact wording of press release.) "Selecting this development as my first major construction project has been a simple decision," Brad explained, as though it weren't the only such offer he'd ever received. "It will underpin not only my values for environmentally friendly architecture, but also embrace my career in entertainment." Yet will it? Alas, last December the developers who had tempted him on board announced they were "completely reassessing" that plan in light of the downturn, and the deepening economic crisis leaves Lost in Showbiz fearing the worst. All we can do is cross our fingers, safe in the knowledge that if Brad Pitt's 800-room "Dubai eco- hotel" is ever built, it will instantly supplant Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon as the most questionable structure to be dreamt up by a soi-disant liberal. Celebrity Brad Pitt Dubai Marina Hyde guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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From the archive: The Mousetrap – new comedy-thriller by Agatha Christie
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The Guardian Guardian Unlimited Books, Fri, 27 Nov 2009
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Originally published on 27 November 1952 LONDON, WEDNESDAY. As the snow piles up around the isolated guest-house in "The Mousetrap," at the Ambassadors Theatre, the false clues drift across the stage, deluding the less alert in the audience and appearing to deceive characters in the play who ought to know better. Agatha Christie's comedy-thriller, like a more expensive production which Miss Tallulah Bankhead once commented on, has "less in it than meets the eye." Coincidence is stretched unreasonably to assemble in one place a group of characters each of whom may reasonably be suspected of murder in series. One killing happens in a black-out at the rise of the curtain, another at the end of the first act, and the third is unconvincingly forestalled in time for the end of the second (and last) act. Yet the whole thing whizzed along as though driven by some real dramatic force, as though the characters were not built entirely of cliches and the situations not all familiar. There is the masculine young woman (Jessica Spencer); here as her foil is the effeminate young man (Allan McClelland); and all over the place are the comic major, by Aubrey Dexter, and the suspiciously articulate foreigner (Martin Miller). Richard Attenborough plays an unconventional police-sergeant on skis and Sheila Sim a guest-house keeper in a leopard skin skirt, a good looker but a bad cook – almost too true to life to be borne by anybody who has ever stayed in a quiet hotel. John Paul and Mignon O'Doherty, the strong silent host and the voluble doomed guest, round off a company which makes the most of a middling piece. G. F. [ This play continues the world's longest initial run. ] "Britain is not finished" – envoy's parting message WASHINGTON, NOVEMBER 26. Sir Oliver Franks, the outgoing British Ambassador, in a farewell speech to United States journalists at the National Press Club here today, said: "It is not true and will not be true that Britain is finished." The ship was "in better shape than before." Today "we are making ends meet. But it is still true that our economy is not sufficiently strong to play our just part in the world to secure sanity and freedom among the nations. I do not mistake the progress we have made for the final accomplishments. I think we shall go on living in this great plateau of tension for many years as we have to deal with people who believe fanatically in false beliefs." But he added: "Things will get better as we go along, and not worse." Sir Oliver had paid a farewell visit to President Truman. Agatha Christie Theatre guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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Brando, Depp, the missing millions and Divine Rapture, the lost movie
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The Guardian Guardian Unlimited Film news, Thu, 26 Nov 2009
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The first sign things were going wrong on the set of Divine Rapture was when Marlon Brando shaved his head. But that was the least of the film's troubles If all the roads in Ireland were to converge at a final destination, you would probably find yourself in Ballycotton, Co Cork. A tiny village on a rocky headland, it is as removed and cosy as its name suggests. Its harbour is stocked with a colourful fishing fleet and traditional music seeps from the pubs on Main Street. Despite an annual running marathon that passes through the town, it is slow-paced, sleepy, and cocooned from the outside world. But although 200-ft cliffs keep the Atlantic at bay and an offshore lighthouse looks out for danger, nothing could protect Ballycotton from nature's cruellest force: Hollywood. Back in 1995, Johnny Depp, Debra Winger, and Marlon Brando rolled into town to make a film called Divine Rapture. Ballycotton looked set to become an Irish landmark in the manner of Cong in County Mayo, which hosted John Wayne's The Quiet Man, or Dingle in Kerry, where David Lean filmed Ryan's Daughter. But there are no mementos or tourist memorabilia in Ballycotton because Divine Rapture was never completed: the production packed up and left with only two weeks of film in the can. Fourteen years later, Divine Rapture is still the elephant in the room. "It's not really talked about at all," says Paddy Egan, as he drives a minibus through the winding roads of Cork. "I'd say some people wouldn't talk about it because of the amount of money they lost – they'd be embarrassed. People in town were badly stung. I was lucky, but some were put out of business." Egan, who provided transport for the film, moved his coach-hire business to another town after the production collapsed, and says he lost around £6,600 in bounced cheques. Everyone from local police to caterers to fishermen were unpaid and the village hotel, the Bayview, is reportedly owed tens of thousands. But the memory of this cinematic fiasco is not only raw for Ballycotton's residents. "Time goes on," says Winger, veteran of films including An Officer and a Gentleman. "The stories that you remember for whatever reason are often the ones like this – the traumatic ones. It was a life lesson, that's the best way to put it." Divine Rapture was to tell the story of Mary (Winger), a machinist in a remote village, who dies only to rise from her coffin during the funeral. The woman is heralded as a saint, although it turns out she has a rare disorder that slows the heart-rate. Written by American production designer Glenda Ganis, the story had a mischievous twinkle that recalled Ealing comedies, and it caught the attention of fledgling producer Barry Navidi. After reading the screenplay in 1989, he spent the next six years trying to get the film into production. Navidi's work bore fruit when the script found Brando. The Godfather actor wanted to play a priest in the story, although this was only part of his motivation. It was also an opportunity to become an Irish citizen – the Irish, he told people in Ballycotton, reminded him of Native Americans. Brando may not have been the full shilling, but he still had clout: he phoned Depp, his co-star in his previous film, 1994's Don Juan DeMarco, and Winger. Both signed up, along with John Hurt. Suddenly, Navidi had a cast, but investors were still wary, even though he budgeted the film at a modest $12m. "We had a project that wasn't arthouse but was a foreign movie," says Navidi. "The American market didn't understand the location but it was a small picture, a Full Monty or a Waking Ned. Here we had a small project, a small story, but with big stars." Eventually, he found sympathetic ears in CineFin, a Los Angeles-based company that claimed to have $300m credit with Orion Pictures. Navidi checked the company's background and found a clean bill of health. He did not know then, however, that two CineFin associates had been in trouble with US federal authorities over alleged banking improprieties. As Divine Rapture finally became a reality, so its downfall was already being written. For the residents of Ballycotton, the circus had arrived. In the summer of 1995, five or six weeks before production started, props vans and trucks, catering marquee and set designers moved in, and began transforming the village into a 1950s locale. "Everyone was happy. It was a great buzz for the village," recalls Egan. Amongst the early arrivals was director Thom Eberhardt, who had made low budget indie films before being lured by Hollywood schlock like Captain Ron. "I didn't come to Divine Rapture on the upswing, that's for sure," he says now. The director had heard about Brando's reputation as a handful and vowed to stand his ground, but the actor did not arrive until the night before shooting began. After settling into his rented Georgian mansion, Brando phoned Eberhardt asking if they could meet at 11pm. "I said, 'No, Marlon, I'm too tired. I've been rehearsing all day.' Then he said, 'I'm going to shave my hair off and wear an orange wig'. Panic set in: 'Get me a car!' As I pulled in, the hair and make-up people were leaving. This guy comes down the stairs looking like a dick with ears. Bald as a buzzard. Barry and his partners were in Ballycotton celebrating because, at long last, their movie was going to start shooting. I stumbled in and must have been white as a sheet because they asked me if I was sick. I said, 'We have to talk about Marlon Brando.' I thought I could handle this guy, but after one meeting, I wasn't so sure." Depp, on the other hand, was a more relaxed proposition. He played a journalist sent to investigate Mary's so-called miracle, and spent his time strumming a guitar in his Winnebago or chatting to everyone from locals to stray dogs. Unsurprisingly, a mob of teenage girls arrived in Ballycotton seeking a glimpse of the heartthrob. Depp and Brando had an interesting relationship, according to Winger. "They were definitely having a relationship that sometimes flowed over into the time in front of the camera," she says. "Johnny really looked up to Marlon and Marlon, of course, loved having an acolyte. I got the impression that the main reason Johnny had come was to work with Brando." Everything seemed to be going well, despite the growing factions, but behind the scenes, panic had set in. CineFin had yet to send any money, forcing the production to proceed on good faith, and two weeks into filming, the bottom fell out. Winger's agent went to collect her fee from CineFin's escrow deposit company in Los Angeles, only to discover a parking lot at the given address. "I felt like I was pushed out of a plane without a parachute," says Navidi. "This must be a nightmare. We all know it's hard to make movies, but I can't believe this. It meant I couldn't rescue the picture. Movies run out of money all the time, it's nothing new – but when something like that happens everybody gets scared and they realise there must be a skeleton in the closet. We had no choice but to abandon production." Winger was devastated. Eberhardt recalls meeting the actress in an American Express office in the city of Cork, some 25 miles from Ballycotton, where she was withdrawing her own money to hand out to the villagers who had looked after her children. "I looked around at these people I had gotten to know," says Winger. "We used someone's fishing boat every day. You don't do this to people. I couldn't stand the thought that this is what showbusiness does. It was devastating for them – not only had we not paid them for the rental of the houses and fishing boats, but they hadn't made the money they would have made catching the fish." Despite Winger's altruism, the only person involved in the film to get paid was Brando, who disappeared (without Irish citizenship), as soon as he sniffed trouble. Brando may have been eccentric, but he was not stupid; he had secured $1m of his $4m fee in advance. The villagers, however, were not so lucky. They had been promised an investment of around $4m, but found themselves bankrupted by the labyrinthine ways of Hollywood. Despite talk of lawsuits, no one was ever held accountable for the debacle. "I can't believe it really. It wasn't some fly-by-night production, it had big equipment, it was a regular movie," says Winger. "If I had been living there, and I had been treated like that, I would never get involved in another Hollywood production." Indeed, the film-makers could move on, but Ballycotton was left with a lingering sense of failure and a sense of what could have been. Fourteen years later, the story is still a sore point. "If the film was finished, it would have been a major success story for the village for years and years," says Paddy Egan. "The opposite was the case. I suppose that is why we call it Divine Rupture." Marlon Brando Johnny Depp guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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Wembley Arena set for 2012 Olympics
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The Guardian Guardian Unlimited Sport, Thu, 26 Nov 2009
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• Badminton and rhythmic gymnastics to take place at site • Will save on building temporary venue at Greenwich Peninsula The International Olympic Committee revealed today that an agreement had been reached "in principle" for London organisers to avoid the need to build a temporary £42m arena by moving two sports to Wembley Arena. Although the two sports involved – badminton and rhythmic gymnastics – have not yet officially approved the move, the chairman of the IOC co-ordination commission, Denis Oswald, said he was confident they would do so. The Badminton World Federation's council is due to meet in Bali tomorrow to discuss the issue, while the International Gymnastics Federation has told the Guardian its executive board would not formally consider it until next year. "There is some saving to make – the two federations have been very co-operative and understand it was wise to look for a cheaper solution," said Oswald, chairman of the IOC body responsible for regularly inspecting and evaluating London's progress. "They have to take care of their athletes so it's important the time between venue and village is not too long and that there is somewhere close where athletes can stay during competition and not have to go back to the village." The solution, which will avoid the need to build a temporary venue at Greenwich Peninsula, and save at least £20m, will see athletes offered the option of staying in hotels near Wembley for the duration of their competition or travelling around the North Circular ring road on a daily basis. Locog insists that the journey will only take around 45 minutes. Although London made much of the fact that a high percentage of athletes would be housed in the Olympic Village during its bid, Oswald said the "exceptional" circumstances of the global economic slump made the decision the right one. London's mayor Boris Johnson, among others, has been pushing for money to be saved on temporary venues. As the Olympic Stadium was included in London's bid to host matches in the 2018 World Cup, alongside Wembley, the new White Hart Lane stadium and the Emirates, Locog chairman Lord Coe said that its future as an athletics stadium was secure. 2018 chief executive Andy Anson said that a maximum of three London stadiums would eventually be included in the bid book. One option, added Coe, might be for the stadium to remain at a capacity of more than 40,000 in order to facilitate a bid for the 2015 athletics World Championships. The Olympic Park Legacy Company, which recently took over responsibility for the fate of the park after the games, will deliver its study on the future of the stadium next year. There is a fierce debate about whether it should remain at a capacity of 80,000 or 55,000 so that it can be used for future major event, or be reduced to around 28,000 as originally planned. Olympic games 2012 Owen Gibson guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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Guest Room Renovations Make Sacramento Hotel Pop
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PRWeb Lifestyle, Thu, 26 Nov 2009
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New and exciting things have been happening at the Fairfield Inn Sacramento Cal Expo with a hotel renovation that has included television upgrades, new mini refrigerators, and a grand new look for the hotel’s lobby and lounge. (PRWeb Nov 26, 2009) Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/11/prweb3257674.htm
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British Airways Increases Flights to Grenada
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PRWeb Consumer: Web sites / Internet, Thu, 26 Nov 2009
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British Airways is increasing the frequency of its summer flights to Grenada to a twice weekly service in 2010, along with a wider range of additional hotels. (PRWeb Nov 26, 2009) Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/11/prweb3254654.htm
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Stephen King plots The Shining sequel
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The Guardian Guardian Unlimited Books, Wed, 25 Nov 2009
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Horror writer Stephen King has revealed that a sequel to The Shining would focus on a 40-year-old Danny Torrance Jack Torrance's little boy Danny was last seen recuperating in Maine after escaping the insane evil of the Overlook Hotel, but Stephen King is now plotting a sequel to The Shining which would age the clairvoyant boy to 40 and transport him to a New York hospice. Speaking to an audience of fans in Toronto about his new novel Under the Dome, King divulged that he'd begun working on a tentative idea for a follow-up to The Shining – first published in 1977 – last summer. Danny, he said, was certain to have been left "with a lifetime's worth of emotional scars" after his experiences at the Overlook, where his father was possessed by the hotel, tried to kill him and his mother and eventually died. How Danny deals with both his nightmarish experiences and the clairvoyance, or "shining", which saved him, might make "a damn fine sequel", King said, according to local Toronto news website the Torontoist . His vision of the book – tentatively called Doctor Sleep - sees Danny now aged 40, working at a hospice for the terminally ill in upstate New York. He is apparently an orderly at the hospice, but his real work is to help make death a little easier for the dying patients with his psychic powers – while making a little money on the side by betting on the horses. King attempted to calm expectations about the sequel, telling the Toronto audience that he wasn't "completely committed" to it, and adding: "Maybe if I keep talking about it I won't have to write it." The Shining was made into a film in 1980 by Stanley Kubrick, starring Jack Nicholson as Danny's father Jack Torrance and Shelley Duvall as his mother Wendy. King also revealed this month that he has an idea for a new book in his epic Dark Tower fantasy series, which follows the adventures of the gunslinger Roland based on Robert Browning's poem "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came". The working title for the eighth book in the series, King announced on his website, would be The Wind Through the Keyhole, but he added that he hadn't yet begun writing it and it would be "a minimum of eight months" before he did. Stephen King Alison Flood guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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From The Office to Nativity!
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The Guardian Guardian Unlimited Film news, Wed, 25 Nov 2009
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Martin Freeman made his name in the The Office as the lovely Tim. Now he's playing another nice bloke in Nativity! So why is he so defensive about being typecast? Martin Freeman is sitting opposite me in a London hotel, and he's being charming. He's already offered to fetch me some refreshments ("Well, if you were in my kitchen I'd get you a drink") and is responding to my questions with vigour, practically bouncing out of his chair as he talks. We meet during his promotional tour for the film Nativity! It's billed as a "heartwarming and hilarious tale of the true meaning of Christmas" but don't worry – it's better than it sounds. Freeman plays Mr Maddens, a frustrated and frayed teacher at a bog-standard primary school who finds love, joy and personal redemption through directing the school nativity play. As you may expect, there are sing-along songs and cute children and real donkeys and – spoiler alert! – a happy ending, but it's also quite refreshingly odd and, at times, rather bleak; enjoyably downcast and care-worn. Freeman is the best thing about the film – he's in virtually every scene and appealing in all of them, with his open, malleable face and its range of double-takes and popped-eye exasperation. The role is of a piece with the ones for which Freeman is most famous – decent, slightly lost, resolutely normal and nice. Although there is plenty of variety on his CV – including a serious education in acting (at the Central School of Speech and Drama), an early cameo as a petty thief in This Life, a deeply unpleasant sex offender in the Channel 4 drama Men Only and Rembrandt in the 2007 Peter Greenaway film Nightwatching – it's fair to say that it's the regular guys – Tim from The Office, Arthur Dent in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy – with which he seems to be most identified, leading me to idly wonder what makes him right for playing the everyman . . . I'm sure you know that coldly dawning realisation when you've just said something wrong. It feels as though the temperature drops several degrees. He tries hard not to show how annoyed he is ("I know this is not what you're saying specifically . . .", "I know you're not levelling anything . . ." ), doesn't shout or swear (much – a near-miracle since he was once known for his unrestricted employment of expletives in interviews, a habit he's tried to knock on the head recently, because "even I hated reading it after a while"), but it's obvious the word "everyman" sounds like an insult. "It does, because I hear it all the time. I have to go, 'OK, I know this person isn't trying to piss me off . . .' " Naturally it must be irritating that people assume he is those characters, who are all variations on life's losers. At 38, Freeman is far from that. He's successful, married (to fellow actor Amanda Abbington) and a father of two (not that he'll talk about any of that. "Mind your own business!" is his response to a question about whether his children are of nativity-play age themselves). If he was pigeonholed playing psychos, that would be one thing; but being known for playing the normal bloke in the middle of the action leaves him open to the accusation that he is always "just playing himself". "Well, no I'm not," he retorts. "If you mean I look a bit like him and I sound a bit like him – yeah, that's because I'm playing him and it didn't say 'He's Somalian' on the script, otherwise I would have tried an accent. If the script says, 'Guy in his 30s, my generation, lives in England', what am I going to do? Start acting like I'm half-lizard? There's no point, because no one wants to see it." Not that he thinks acting doesn't require application – "I certainly don't just turn up. If I make it look like that, that's because I'm good" – but he's scornful of the notion that tangible effort is what "proper" acting is made of. "I'm not interested in, 'What can I do to impress?' Well, play the role. I hate it when people show you what they're doing. No one wants to see the cogs. But very often that's what's lauded as great acting: 'Look at me working! Look at my false nose!'" It might be easy to assume that Nativity! didn't stretch Freeman much as an actor, but in fact the film was not formally scripted and so a real challenge for him. "Improvising comedy, and furthering the story, and staying true to the character – that's a lot of balls to juggle," agrees Freeman. It is a technique he tried before on Confetti, the 2006 film made by Nativity!'s director, Debbie Isitt, and he was pleased to see he had improved: "I'm just literally better at not talking over people. Better at not swearing." Being the person with whom the audience wants to identify is surely a boon – you can't be the leading man without it. Freeman acknowledges that it can be useful: "Some people like me, and you either have a thing that people want to follow or you don't." But his heart's not really in it. "You think, how do I get out of this? and the answer is I can't. Even if I think I don't want to do comedy for ages, if I read a script and it's really good, I want to do it." Besides, as he acknowledges, it's difficult to challenge the legacy of a breakthrough hit such as The Office and a character as loved as Tim: "I can't have another actor's career. It's done. Part of my thing is already set in motion and I'd be mad to begrudge it. But it can be frustrating." On the making of The Office, Freeman says he had "as much fun as I'm ever likely to have again doing that show. I loved it. I laughed more than I have on any other job." Did they know they were on to a smash hit, right from the start? "No one knew it was going to do what it did, but we all thought it was good. I was dead proud of it from the moment I saw a rough cut." I'm about to get on to the subject of Ashley Jensen – his co-star in Nativity! and another alumnus of the Ricky Gervais/Stephen Merchant fame academy (she played Maggie in Extras) – but somehow we're back on the subject of typecasting again. "It [being in a hit like The Office] has its strengths and weaknesses. [If it wasn't for its impact] there's no way people would say, 'Oh, this character is like that character [Tim].' Well, no it isn't! So that is a chore. And I don't want to have to feel defensive about it." But clearly he does. He knows that he's one of the fortunate ones and that given our cultural antipathy to self-importance – we like our celebrities to just shut up and look grateful – even hinting at mild dissatisfaction runs the risk of coming off like towering hubris. But he can't help himself: every time the subject dies down, it flares back up again. In the end, all you can do is sit back and admire his energy. Finally he pauses, takes a breath and laughs. "So, yeah, that's my very undefensive answer to being labelled an everyman. You clearly didn't hit a nerve there." Comedy Celebrity Television Comedy Television industry Alice Wignall guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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New Fairfield Inn Welcomes Visitors to Orange Beach
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PRWeb Lifestyle: Travel & Tourism, Wed, 25 Nov 2009
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The white sands of the Gulf of Mexico are just a shimmer away for guests of the all new Fairfield Inn & Suites Orange Beach, Alabama. This fabulous hotel, the newest hotel in the Orange Beach, AL is a perfect destination whether traveling for business or pleasure. (PRWeb Nov 25, 2009) Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/11/prweb3247964.htm
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ibis Opens Phuket Kata, a Brand New Economy Hotel in Phuket
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PRWeb Business: Investment, Wed, 25 Nov 2009
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Newly opened hotel in Phuket offers top value accommodation for visitors, perfect for families and couples. (PRWeb Nov 25, 2009) Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/hotel-in-thailand/ibis-phuket-kata/prweb3254574.htm
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Marriott Opens Courtyard Hotel in Miami, Florida
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PRWeb Events / Trade Shows, Wed, 25 Nov 2009
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The Former Doubletree Hotel is Now a Courtyard by Marriott (PRWeb Nov 25, 2009) Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/11/prweb3247604.htm
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AdEx Media, Inc. To Present at 2nd Annual LD MICRO Conference
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PR Newswire - Advertising, Tue, 24 Nov 2009
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MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Nov. 24 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- AdEx Media, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: ADXM), a leading performance-driven, online marketing and distribution company, today announced that CEO, Scott Rewick and CFO, Ben Zadik will present at the 2nd Annual LD MICRO Conference on Thursday, December 3, 2009, at 8:30 AM PT at the Luxe Sunset Hotel in Los Angeles.
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Hotel Prepares for SYTA 2010 in Sacramento
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PRWeb Society: Teen Issues/Interests, Tue, 24 Nov 2009
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Youth travel experiences are great educational and social opportunities and in keeping with the vision of the Student Youth Travel Association (SYTA) the Courtyard Cal Expo is proud to offer high quality accommodations to the association as it brings its annual conference to Sacramento Aug.27-31, 2010. (PRWeb Nov 23, 2009) Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/11/prweb3240884.htm
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Galveston Hotel Offers Escape from Malls with Downtown Shopping Discount for the Holidays
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PRWeb Lifestyle: Hotel / Resorts, Tue, 24 Nov 2009
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Escape the crowded malls during the busy holiday season and explore shops in Galveston's historic downtown as part of The Tremont House Getaway for the Holidays package. Galveston's only historic downtown hotel invites guests to enjoy a quiet getaway this holiday season. (PRWeb Nov 24, 2009) Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/discount_shopping/holiday/prweb3252414.htm
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Hudson Valley Restaurant Week 2010 Offers World-Class Dining at Bargain Prices
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PRWeb Lifestyle: Food / Beverage, Mon, 23 Nov 2009
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Fourth annual Hudson Valley Restaurant Week, March 15-28, 2010, shows off this scenic New York State region as a premier culinary destination. Top chefs use local farm products, hotels feature special rates and foodies can take advantage of great prix-fixe meals. (PRWeb Nov 23, 2009) Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/Hudson-Valley/Restaurant-Week/prweb3235494.htm
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The Trellis Room Announces Its Christmas Menu For 2009
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PRWeb Industry: Food, Sun, 22 Nov 2009
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Because the holidays can be quite stressful, The Battle House, A Renaissance Hotel & Spa, is offering a relaxing alternative to endless grocery lists and hours of preparation at its restaurants in Mobile. (PRWeb Nov 22, 2009) Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/11/prweb3240364.htm
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The queen of crime
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The Guardian Guardian Unlimited Books, Sun, 22 Nov 2009
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When Maj Sjöwall and her partner Per Wahlöö started writing the Martin Beck detective series in Sweden in the 60s, they little realised that it would change the way we think about policemen for ever I t might count as one of the most remarkable writing collaborations in the history of publishing. A man and a woman, a couple, sit down every evening to write. Dinner is over, their children are in bed. She's never written a book before. He's a published author, but not with anything like this. They write in long hand, through the night if necessary. One chapter each. The following evening they swap chapters and type them up, editing each other as they go along. They don't argue, at least not about the words. These seem to flow naturally. Ten years, 10 books. Each book 30 chapters, 300 chapters in all. Every one centred on the same group of middle-aged, mostly unprepossessing policemen in Stockholm's National Homicide Department. Often, very little happens. Sometimes for pages on end. What is more, each book is a Marxist critique of society. Their mission – or "the project" as the authors call it – is to hold up a mirror to social problems in 1960s Sweden. Unlikely as it may sound, the books have become international bestsellers, over 10m copies sold and counting. Classics of the thriller genre, they've been made into films and adapted for television. Subsequent generations of crime writers are fans. There's no doubt that the latest left-leaning Swedish author to hit the bestseller lists, Stieg Larsson, would have read them. Some say the couple wrote the finest crime series ever; that without them we would not have Ian Rankin's John Rebus or Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander. Yet if Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö had not met, the books would not have existed; and if they hadn't fallen in love, the books would be nowhere near as good as they are. More than 40 years have passed since they wrote together every night, filling in each other's sentences. Today, Maj Sjöwall walks barefoot through her studio in a suburb in the south of Stockholm. Her hair is long and grey, and she's wearing a loose-fitting linen smock. The room is light-filled and simply furnished: carefully chosen pictures, notebooks, pens, everything placed just so. One might describe it as monkish, but Sjöwall's life has not been monkish, as I will find out. This is where she still works, aged 74, as a writer and a translator. There's a single bed, a fridge, a hob, for when the small apartment that she rents nearby is too stuffy during the long Swedish summer. She lives modestly. She can not afford a car. Unlike Rankin or Mankell the books she wrote with Wahlöö have not made her very rich. There has been a modest income recently from foreign sales, but the royalties she receives from her Swedish publisher are based on old contracts. She does not sound bitter about this. "Rather free than rich," she says. Her lover and writing companion died 44 years ago, at the age of 49, just as their 10th book was going to press. She's lived now far longer than they were ever together, but she's still asked to talk about those years in the 60s. She finds this a trifle baffling. She is mystified by the insatiable appetite for crime fiction. "This is a new part of my life that I didn't expect," she says. We sit at a small square table, nursing cups of instant coffee. Like the books, she is direct, no nonsense, plain-speaking, although her voice is sometimes frail. "I never thought the books would last all my life, or that I'd still be thinking about them after all this time." I discovered "the Martin Beck series" by accident three years ago when the collection was re-issued in handsome new editions in English. Pick up one book, preferably beginning with the first, Roseanna , because they are best read in chronological order, and you become unhinged. You want to block out a week of your life, lie to your boss, and stay in bed, gorging on one after another, as though eating packet upon packet of extra strong mints. I began to worry that I was in love with Martin Beck, the main policeman. This was strange, because not only is he not a real person, he also isn't my type. He may be empathetic and dogged but mostly he's dour, humourless, dyspeptic, antisocial. When Sjöwall and Wahlöö invented him, the idea that a crime novel should feature a credible detective, flaws and all, was new. We've grown so used to our curmudgeonly fictional coppers, whether in books or on screen, that it's easy to forget that Beck is the prototype for practically every portrayal of a policeman ever since, in this country, or America, or continental Europe. Beck – did I mention that I'm in love with him? – shares the limelight with a group of colleagues, all equally believable, all male. There is no one hero. The policemen irritate one another in the same way that anyone who has ever worked in an office will recognise. Mannerisms grate. Tempers flare. Yet they spend more time with one another than they do with their wives – those who can hold down a marriage, that is. The books are set in an era when everyone smoked; there were no mobile phones, or DNA samples, or the internet. They're full of Swedish addresses which are as alien as they are unpronounceable, and as unpronounceable as they are long. Yet they don't feel outdated or off-putting. The action is often slow yet they're still hugely entertaining (and often very funny). Occasionally, towards the end of the series, the message becomes a little bit hectoring – you sense Wahlöö knew he was going to die, that time was running out – but by this point you're well and truly hooked and you can forgive the lecture. So what makes the books so compelling? There's something inherently honourable about them, something to do with the meticulous research that went into each one before it was written, and the frail humanity of the characters. They display, say critics, a relevance and timelessness that is the mark of all good fiction. The deceptively simple style is both sparse and dramatic – an accomplishment all the more remarkable when you think that the books were written by two people. "We worked a lot with the style," explains Sjöwall. "We wanted to find a style which was not personally his, or not personally mine, but a style that was good for the books. We wanted the books to be read by everyone, whether you were educated or not." People tell her that the Martin Beck series marked the beginning of a lifetime of reading. "They picked them up off their parents' shelves when they were teenagers and discovered a love of books." Perhaps it goes back to those Marxist roots – there's a sense that it is this, and not the volume of sales, that gives her most pleasure. Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö met in the summer of 1962, and the attraction was instant. It all sounds very bohemian and Swedish. Wahlöö was nine years older than Sjöwall, married with a daughter. In pictures he looks a bit like Jethro Tull, big hair, big nose, big eyes, big grin. He was a member of the Communist Party. A former crime reporter, he'd been deported from Spain by Franco. By the time he came across Sjöwall he was a well-regarded political journalist. Sjöwall, both a journalist and an art director, looked younger than her 27 years. She was pretty in a fresh-faced boyish way. One of those people who look cool without trying. She'd also lived a little, which, I imagine, Wahlöö might have liked. Her background, like his, was middle class – oppressive and chilly. Her parents were unhappily married. Her father was the manager of a chain of hotels and she grew up on the top floor of one of them, in the centre of Stockholm. Early on, she decided that society was much like an upmarket hotel, from the wealthy guests in the penthouse to the kitchen staff peeling potatoes in the basement, and that this was inherently wrong. "When I was 11, I realised that I did not have to live the life my mother had: school, marriage, children, apartment, summer house." How would she have described herself? "I think I was rather tough," she replies. "You get tough when you grow up unloved. People described me as a boyish girl – rather shy, but I didn't show it. I had an attitude. I was rather wild. I lied a lot because I knew the alternative was to be punished. As I got older I realised I didn't have to lie any more and it was a nice feeling. I could be myself." As a teenager she went to pubs and restaurants on her own at a time when young women did not do that kind of thing. She fell in with a group of artists and musicians. At the age of 21 she was just starting out as a journalist when she discovered she was pregnant by a man who had already left her. Her father tried to force her to have an abortion. A friend at work, 20 years her senior, took pity on her predicament and suggested they marry. "He was nice. I wasn't very much in love with him but I admired him." After the relationship ended she married again, this time to another older man who wanted her to live in the suburbs and have more children. This second marriage didn't last either. She was a single mother, with a six-year-old daughter, by the time she met Wahlöö. "We met through work first. There was a place in town much like Fleet Street where all the journalists used to meet," she recalls. "We all went to the same pubs. Then Per and I started to like each other very much, so we started going to other pubs to avoid our friends and be on our own." It was complicated. "I didn't like this cheating on his wife, and he had a child. So…" she pauses, leaving the messy details in the air. Wahlöö was commissioned to write a book which he'd work on every night in a hotel room near the bar where they drank. Each day he would drop off an envelope with the work-in-progress inside, and a note. He'd deliberately leave gaps. Why don't you fill in this bit, he'd suggest in a letter. He'd give her a female character to invent. It sounds incredibly intimate and clandestine. They were falling in love. They could not easily meet. So they did what came naturally – they wrote for one another. It was a love affair in words on a page, a courtship of sentences. Within a year Per had left his wife, packed a meagre pile of shirts into a suitcase, and moved in with Sjöwall and her daughter Lena. Their first son, Tetz, was born nine months later. "His wife hated me of course," she says. "Now we are very good friends." They would never marry. "We said, well, obviously marriage is not the thing for us," she laughs. "We just knew we really loved each other and loved not having the papers to prove it." They'd discussed the idea of writing a series of crime books. They talked about the crime literature that they both liked to read, progressive writers like Georges Simenon and Dashiell Hammett, who took crime writing out of the drawing room and on to the street. Their aim was something more subversive than what had gone before. "We wanted to describe society from our left point of view. Per had written political books, but they'd only sold 300 copies. We realised that people read crime and through the stories we could show the reader that under the official image of welfare-state Sweden there was another layer of poverty, criminality and brutality. We wanted to show where Sweden was heading: towards a capitalistic, cold and inhuman society, where the rich got richer, the poor got poorer." They planned 10 books and 10 books only. The subtitle would be "The story of a crime" – the crime being society's abandonment of the working classes. The first plot came to them on a canal trip from Stockholm to Gothenburg. "There was an American woman on the boat, beautiful, with dark hair, always standing alone. I caught Per looking at her. 'Why don't we start the book by killing this woman?' I said." Seven months of painstaking research followed, working out the exact geography of the crime, how everything would fit together, down to the distances Beck and his team would have to travel, how much time it would take. Each chapter was plotted beforehand like a storyboard. Then they wrote every night until the manuscript was finished. Wahlöö took it to his publisher. "Per told them: 'This is by a friend of mine and I just want to hear what you think.'" The publisher liked what he read and guessed that his author was involved in some way. Wahlöö explained he'd written it with Sjöwall and a deal was struck for the 10 books. Roseanna sold moderately well, there were even one or two good reviews. "Little old ladies took the books back to the shop, complaining that they were awful, too realistic. Crime stories in those days would not describe a naked dead woman as we did. Or describe a policeman going to bed with his wife. But on the other hand, students loved them." Roseanna was followed by The Man Who Went Up in Smoke and then The Man on the Balcony , each one written to the same 12-month timetable. Their themes often followed the news agenda: paedophilia, serial killers, the sex industry, suicide. Eventually they were able to give up their day jobs, but they were never able to survive off the books alone. "Back then no one had an agent. These days crime writers get millions and millions, they can afford to live abroad," she recalls, thinking perhaps of the phenomenal success of Henning Mankell, whose central character Kurt Wallander owes so much to Martin Beck. "We always had money problems. Sometimes I would lie awake at night wondering how to pay the rent." There is unforeseen income now from foreign deals, but because the books have never fallen out of print the deal with her Swedish publisher is still the same as it was when they originally signed. She says she does not care. "I have enough. I stay afloat." Wahlöö fell ill four years before he died. First he complained of a swelling. Then the doctors said his lungs were full of water. Eventually they realised that his pancreas had burst. "Initially we thought this could be cured. We went to all kinds of doctors, but we didn't trust any of them. Some said go on a special diet, others wanted to cut him open. In and out of hospital and all the time he was getting thinner and thinner." By the final book, The Terrorists , he was very sick. "He knew he was going to die because he had sneaked into the professor's room and looked at his notes." They rented a bungalow in Màlaga and, for once, Wahlöö did most of the writing. Sjöwall took on the role of editor. "Sometimes he would just fall off the chair because he couldn't write any more. In the morning the words would be illegible." I ask her how she coped. It's hard to imagine: a relatively young woman, a dying soulmate, three children (a second son, Jens, had been born) and the pressure of a book, the final piece of "the project", to finish. She answers with typical honesty. "Not very good, I think. I am not Florence Nightingale. I was desperate. It made me so isolated. Yet I wanted to be with him and he wanted to be with me. So we hid. There was just Per, the children and the books." They came home from Spain in March 1975, the book was sent to the printers and Wahlöö died in June. "He took very strong morphine tablets. Either on purpose or because, you know, if it didn't work he took one more, if that didn't work he'd take another one. He fell into a coma and never came round," she says. She pauses. "His brain was not there any more. It was terrible. I was kind of praying he would die. After three weeks he did." The relationship had lasted 13 years. She was, she says, with a sigh, "kind of wild for a while. With guys, with pubs." With very little money, and three children to bring up, it sounds as though life was horribly chaotic. Over time there were other long-term relationships, but now she prefers to live on her own. "I know many guys. Some of them I have been together with for a while, some are just good friends. That is enough for me. I think I have a good life." There have also been writing collaborations since, one a book called The Woman Who Resembled Greta Garbo with the Dutch writer Tomas Ross, which was well received. Her publishers would like her to write a memoir, "but everyone's life story is fascinating, isn't it?" she says, dismissing the idea. She still writes fiction when she isn't being asked to go abroad to speak about Wahlöö, and Martin Beck, and the 10 books she co-wrote in her 30s. She's never been persuaded to write an 11th book in the series, although she does act as a consultant on a very popular Swedish television drama based on Martin Beck. She has only one regret and that is that Wahlöö never adopted her daughter, which has meant that she's never received any money from the books, however small. "At the time we had no idea that the series would become well known." The idea that they'd be sold all over the world would have seemed outlandish. I wonder if the society they feared has come to pass. "Yes, all of it," she replies. "Everything we feared happened, faster. People think of themselves not as human beings but consumers. The market rules and it was not that obvious in the 1960s, but you could see it coming." So "the project" failed then? "Yes!" she laughs. She laughs a great deal, I realise. "It failed. Of course it did. The problem was that the people who read our books already thought the same as us. Nothing changed – we changed our lives, that's all." What would Wahlöö think now if he could see her, if he knew how admired their collaboration had become? There is a sharp intake of breath. "I think he would be amazed. I always think of him when we get a prize, or when I have to talk in public. I always think," and her voice drops to a whisper, "Per would have loved this." All 10 novels in the Martin Beck Series are published by Harper Perennial Crime books Louise France guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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Kew Management Corporation Leases Property at Madison Square Park for Hill Country Chicken Eatery
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PRWeb Art & Entertainment: News & Talk Shows, Fri, 20 Nov 2009
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Kew Management inks deal with Hill Country Chicken for corner retail space in NYC's Madison Square North Historic District. Slated for Spring 2010 opening in Kew's landmark flagship building at 1123 Broadway, Hill Country Chicken represents yet another popular destination in the renaissance Nomad area (North of Madison Square), now home to trendy restaurants, spas, clubs, hotels and renovated apartment and office buildings. (PRWeb Nov 19, 2009) Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/11/prweb3227344.htm
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Celebrate New Year's Eve at a Gold List Portland Hotel
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PRWeb Art & Entertainment: Museums, Fri, 20 Nov 2009
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Two of Portland’s Condé Nast Traveler’s Gold List Hotels throw parties and offer packages for New Year’s Eve! With sold out NYE packages for the past three years, Hotel deLuxe and Hotel Lucia will keep up its reputation as the Portland destination for ringing in the New Year. (PRWeb Nov 19, 2009) Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/11/prweb3228244.htm
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Pepe Calderin Design Receives Prestigious Property Award In San Diego
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PRWeb Art & Entertainment: Magazines, Fri, 20 Nov 2009
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Leading property professionals gathered in California yesterday as the results of the Americas Property Awards in association with CNBC Arabiya and the New York Times were revealed. The presentations were made during a networking event and gala dinner held at the US Grant Hotel in San Diego on Thursday evening (November 12th). (PRWeb Nov 19, 2009) Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/miamidesignerpepecalderin/cnbcpropertyawards/prweb3223134.htm
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“Birdland @ 60” A Jazz Photo Exhibit Celebrating Birdland’s 60th Anniversary
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PRWeb Art & Entertainment: Music, Fri, 20 Nov 2009
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Affinia Manhattan Hotel To Exhibit Photos Of Musical Greats Who Have Appeared On The Legendary Birdland Stage, December 3rd– 31st, 2009 (PRWeb Nov 20, 2009) Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/Birdland/Affinia_Manhattan/prweb3229114.htm
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