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Support wind farms? It would be less controversial to argue for blackouts

http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/05/30/support-wind-farms-it-would-be-less-controversial-to-argue-for-blackouts

By rejecting all the means by which renewable electricity can be generated, such as wind farms, tidal barrages, hydro elcric dams etc, the UK has set a very dangerous courseThis article titled “Support wind farms? It would be less controversial to argue for blackouts” was written by George Monbiot, for The Guardian on Monday 30th May 2011 20.00 UTCWhy do those who oppose wind power insist on spoiling their case with gibberish? In his column on Friday, Simon Jenkins claimed that onshore windfarms were being planned “with no concern for cost”. But the only reason for building them is a concern for cost. If it weren’t for this issue, they would be the last option governments would choose – God knows they cause enough trouble.As the government’s Committee on Climate Change reports, large onshore windfarms are “already close to competitive” with burning natural gas, and are likely to get there by 2020. They are the cheapest renewable sources in this country by a long way. Offshore wind costs roughly twice as much, and its costs have been escalating. After attacking the high cost of wind power, Jenkins argued that we should instead invest in “sun and waves”. The committee shows that while the expected price of electricity from onshore wind in 2030 is between 7 and 8.5 pence per kilowatt hour, solar power is expected to come in at between 11 and 25p, and wave between 15 and 31p. Talk about no concern for cost!Incidentally, the cheapest low carbon option, the committee says, is nuclear power, at 5-10p. But, because of public objections, new plants are likely to be confined to existing sites, which means a maximum of about 20 gigawatts (a quarter of our current power capacity). Planning objections also restrict the spread of onshore wind. The only viable means of getting carbon off the grid, the committee suggests, is a mixture of sources: renewables, nuclear and carbon capture and storage.But those who oppose wind power can’t help themselves. In parliament earlier this month, Glyn Davies, the MP who is leading the fight against windfarms in mid-Wales, insisted that “Welsh windfarms have a load factor of just 19% – the lowest ever recorded” and that “the carbon impact of the development can never be compensated for by any possible carbon benefit”. Rubbish again. The capacity factor for Welsh wind (the amount the turbines produce as a proportion of their idealised output) is 26%.Professor Gareth Harrison of Edinburgh University estimates that the carbon payback time for the wind developments in mid-Wales will be roughly 12 months (all references on my website). Davies, like Jenkins, also claimed that “so much more” could have been done with the same money had it been spent on wave and tidal power, offshore wind and solar photovoltaics. Should MPs not be obliged to do some research before they open their mouths in parliament?Anti-wind campaigners are also highly selective. The Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales, obsessed by windfarms, says nothing about the opencast coalmines ripping south Wales apart. Nor do you hear a word about the destruction of the ecosystems of upland Wales (and England and Scotland) by sheep grazing. These champions of the countryside want to save it from only one threat.For all that, it’s a real one. While the windfarms themselves divide communities, everyone hates the new power lines required to connect them to the grid. Here in mid-Wales, I have yet to meet anyone who will speak up in favour of them. Because they have to march across so much countryside, their visual impact is greater per pound of investment than that of any other technology.Though you could see this issue coming as clearly as the pylons themselves, the green movement is completely unprepared. Greenpeace tells me “we haven’t done any work on pylons”. Hardly anyone seems to be aware of how perilous this situation is: how easily renewable energy could be killed by the power lines issue.This is about to become a national struggle, in which opponents of the new pylons will be cast as heroes. Promising direct action, reminding us of the great battles against the reservoirs supplying England, those who marched against the new lines in Wales last week will put us, unless we act quickly, in a dangerous position. Green activists will be outflanked by green activism. The same battle will then be fought all over the United Kingdom, wherever a new power line is planned.Many of the areas affected by proposals for new lines are either Tory constituencies or Lib Dem seats the Tories will hope to take (all of which are now contestable). It is hard to believe that the Conservative commitment to low-carbon energy could withstand a major rebellion within the party: Tory environmentalism is easily uprooted.The greens need to decide where they stand. The only position that makes sense to me is unequivocally to support the campaign against overhead lines. Where new powerlines are built they must go underground. If they can’t go underground, they shouldn’t be built. If we are not against pylons marching over stunning countryside, what are we for?But here too there’s a problem. Like the windfarms, overhead lines are favoured by the government because of its concern for cost. According to the National Grid, burying the lines connecting the turbines in mid-Wales to the rest of the system would cost 3.2 times as much as putting them on pylons (£562m vs £178m). But how much does that add to the cost of electricity?Calculating this is easy (there’s an explanation on my website) – as long as you know the capital costs of the whole project. But neither the National Grid nor anyone else I’ve spoken to is prepared to hazard a guess about the cost of the rest of the infrastructure, so I can’t yet tell you whether burying the power lines makes onshore wind here more expensive than competing technologies.In fact my efforts to obtain relevant data of all kinds from the government, the National Grid and the wind industry reveal that, like the environment movement, they are completely unprepared for this backlash. Dismayed by the collective failure to address the pylons issue, the campaign against windfarms now confidently tells the same story about this technology as others do about nuclear: the turbines are erected by big, greedy corporations; they are unfairly subsidised by the government; they will cause untold damage to human health. In view of the flack you get for supporting any power technology, I’m beginning to think it would be less controversial to argue in favour of blackouts.So this is where the United Kingdom stands. We cannot keep burning fossil fuels without cooking the biosphere. We don’t like nuclear power. We don’t like onshore wind. We won’t like the costs of the other technologies. We reject all the means by which electricity is generated. Yet no one is volunteering to stop using it.• A fully referenced version of this article can be found on George Monbiot’s website guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogSupport wind farms? It would be less controversial to argue for blackoutsRelated posts:Architects worried by tower blocks and windPbwiki supportWild parakeets seen as a threat in the UK
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May 30 2011, 5:41pm | Comments »
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How gold farmers reap huge harvest from online gaming

http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/05/29/how-gold-farmers-reap-huge-harvest-from-online-gaming

Estimates suggest 400,000 people are employed to build up credits in online games such as World of Warcraft and EverQuest by virtual gold mining or r such ways of building up in-game credits that can be translated into real value.This article titled “How gold farmers reap huge harvest from online gaming” was written by Josh Halliday, for The Guardian on Wednesday 25th May 2011 19.15 UTCTens of millions of people spend hours and pay big money for virtual gains on the most popular multiplayer online games, including World of Warcraft, Eve Online and EverQuest.Behind these games are “gold farmers”, who spend hours within the games each day, gathering virtual credits and selling them to gamers for real world cash.The most recent estimates, from 2009, suggest that 400,000 people are employed as gold farmers across the world, with 85% of those in China and Vietnam, according to Professor Richard Heeks of the University of Manchester.These gold farmers are almost entirely males between 18 and 25, and most are either cash-strapped college students or unemployed rural migrants. They sell in-game advantages – an increased skill level, or a virtual ore – to players eager to boost their online reputation.The multiplayer online games industry has boomed in recent years thanks to increased internet access and the rise of social networks. World of Warcraft, easily the most popular of its kind, had 12 million subscribers last year.According to a report published by the World Bank last month, gold farming was worth about $3bn (£1.85bn) in 2009 – most of which was kept by developing countries. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogHow gold farmers reap huge harvest from online gamingRelated posts:Farmers collaborate online to face rural uncertaintyOnline advertising in the UKRolling Your Own Online Office
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May 29 2011, 9:16am | Comments »
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Zapatero’s socialists defeated by People’s party in regional elections

http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/05/23/zapateros-socialists-defeated-by-peoples-party-in-regional-elections

Results seen as protest vote against Spain’s José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s handling of the Spanish economy since 2008This article titled “Zapatero’s socialists defeated by People’s party in regional elections” was written by Giles Tremlett in Madrid, for The Guardian on Monday 23rd May 2011 17.28 UTCThe socialist party of Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is licking its wounds after defeat by the conservative opposition People’s party (PP) in municipal and regional elections.In what was widely seen as a protest vote against Zapatero himself and his handling of Spain’s economy, his party lost control of key city halls in places such as Barcelona and Seville while the PP took control of most of the country’s powerful regional governments.The central Castilla La Mancha region, Aragon and the Balearic islands all ejected socialist administrations.“We are aware of the situation that had distanced people from our party and caused them to criticise us with their vote or abstention,” party spokesman José Blanco said.The socialist drubbing came just 10 months before a general election and appeared to clear the way for PP leader Mariano Rajoy to take possession of the prime minister’s Moncloa Palace residence on his third attempt.The voting coincided with the eruption of numerous popular protests against established politics across Spain, with demonstrators camping out in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol and in dozens of other cities. A backdrop of 21% unemployment and sluggish growth has spread pessimism throughout Spain as the country struggles to find its feet after the 2008 crash.The socialists lost one in five voters on Sunday, compared to the municipal elections of 2007. Not all those votes were picked up by other mainstream parties, however, and the number of spoilt ballots doubled. But overall turnout was a high 66%.Zapatero is blamed by some for mismanaging a debt crisis that saw Spain on the edge of disaster last year. Others dislike the austerity measures he has since imposed in order to avoid a Portuguese- or Greek-style debacle in Spain.His popularity has plunged since a U-turn last year saw him bring in a strict deficit-cutting plan, which he has pledged to stick to, along with labour and pensions reforms.Markets reacted nervously to the poll result on Monday, pushing up the price of Spanish bonds and pushing down Spanish share prices.The PP urged Zapatero to call a snap general election. “Zapatero and the whole socialist party must reflect on what has happened. Spain cannot waste another year like this,” said the party’s general secretary María Dolores de Cospedal.The one socialist leader to have survived Sunday’s debacle, the head of the Extramadura regional government Guillermo Fernández, also suggested that an early general election might be considered.The socialists must first choose a new leader to take them into those elections, with deputy prime minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba and defence minister Carme Chacón as favourites.Party officials said that a timetable for electing the new leader would be set on Saturday.With a general election due in Portugal on 5 June, and with opinion polls showing that socialist prime minister José Sócrates will struggle to hang on to power, the rolling back of leftwing politics that has already taken place in northern Europe now appears to have moved south. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogZapatero’s socialists defeated by People’s party in regional electionsRelated posts:Blair to go, now give back the Labour PartyCatalan independence boost after Barcelona voteZapatero says Spain safe from bailout
May 23 2011, 12:35pm | Comments »
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Cut red meat intake and don’t eat ham, say cancer researchers

http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/05/23/cut-red-meat-intake-and-dont-eat-ham-say-cancer-researchers

World Cancer Research Fund advises people to limit consumption of beef, pork and lamb and avoid processed meatThis article titled “Cut red meat intake and don’t eat ham, say cancer researchers” was written by Denis Campbell, health correspondent, for The Guardian on Sunday 22nd May 2011 23.06 UTCCancer experts have issued a fresh warning about eating red and processed meat after “the most authoritative report” on the subject blamed them for causing the disease.The World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) is advising people to limit their intake of red meats such as beef, pork and lamb, and to avoid processed meat such as ham and salami altogether. “Convincing evidence” that both types of meat increase the risk of bowel cancer means people should think seriously about reducing how much they eat, it recommends.The charity kickstarted a global debate in 2007 when it published a study which identified meat as a risk factor for a number of different forms of cancer.WCRF-funded scientists at Imperial College London led by Dr Teresa Norat studied 263 research papers that have come out since then looking at the role of diet, weight and physical activity in bowel cancer. An independent panel of leading cancer experts then reviewed their conclusions. “For red and processed meat, findings of 10 new studies were added to the 14 analysed as part of the 2007 report. The panel confirmed that there is convincing evidence that both red and processed meat increase bowel cancer risk,” said the report .“WCRF recommends that people limit consumption to 500g (cooked weight) of red meat a week – roughly the equivalent of five or six medium portions of roast beef, lamb or pork – and avoid processed meat,” it added. About 36,000 Britons a develop bowel cancer every year, and some 16,500 die from it. It is the UK’s second biggest cancer killer after lung cancer.About 17,000 cases a year (43%) could be prevented if people ate less meat and more fibre, drank less, maintained a healthy weight and kept active, the WCRF says.Its 850-page report, releasedon Monday, is “the most authoritative ever report of bowel cancer risk”, cancer prevention experts claim.Professor Alan Jackson of Southampton University, the chair of the WCRF’s continuous update project expert panel, said: “On meat, the clear message that comes out of our report is that red and processed meat increase risk of bowel cancer and that people who want to reduce their risk should consider cutting down the amount they eat.”Growing concern about red and processed meat prompted the government in February to advise consumers for the first time to consider cutting down. That came after the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN), experts who advise the government, examined the evidence on the subject. It decided that those meats probably increase the risk of bowel cancer.People who eat 90g or more a day should cut down to the UK average of 70g, SACN recommended. It advised having smaller portions or eating those meats less often. A 70g serving could be three slices of ham, a lamb chop or two standard beef burgers.WCRF’s review has also firmed up from “probable” to “convincing” its view of the protection against bowel cancer afforded by eating foods containing fibre, such as wholegrains, pulses, fruit and vegetables.Milk, garlic and dietary supplements containing calcium also “probably” reduce the risk, the expert panel concluded.But farmers’ leaders denounced the WCRF’s new report and accused it of deliberately choosing the first day of National Vegetarian Week to publish it in order to maximise publicity for conclusions which the charity first reached years ago.Chris Lamb, a spokesman for BPEX and EBLEX, which represents England’s pig, beef and lamb farmers, said: “Average consumption has been in or around 500g a week for a few years. The vast majority of consumers aren’t exceeding this and don’t have to worry about [this]“, he said.The risks identified by the WCRF were unchanged, he stressed.Lamb argued it was unfair for the WCRF to highlight meat as a contributory cause of bowel cancer when the main risk was to people who are generally unhealthy, for example by consuming too much food, alcohol or fizzy drink.“They aren’t assisting consumers. Consumers eat and enjoy meat as part of a balanced diet, and meat plays a valuable part in that balanced diet”, said Lamb. “If you eat or drink anything in excess it’s a danger. Therefore, if you can pick on meat in order to get headlines, then you aren’t actually helping consumers.”Professor Dame Sally Davies, the chief medical officer for England, said red meat can form part of a healthy, balanced diet. “It is a good source of protein and vitamins and minerals, such as iron, selenium, zinc and B vitamins,” she said, “but people who eat a lot of red and processed meat should consider cutting down. The occasional steak or extra few slices of lamb is fine but regularly eating a lot could increase your risk of bowel cancer.”Bowel Cancer UK chief executive Deborah Alsina said: “The report significantly adds to the available evidence into the increased risk of bowel cancer from eating too much red and processed meat; and strengthens the evidence of how eating food with fibre in it protects people against the disease.Hazel Nunn, a senior health information officer at Cancer Research UK, said: “With barbeque season just round the corner, this is a timely reminder that how much alcohol you drink, how active you are, your weight, and how much red and processed meat and fibre you eat can all have a bearing on your risk of bowel cancer.”• Growing numbers of lung cancer patients are having life-saving operations thanks to advances in surgical techniques. The proportion of patients with the disease who undergo surgery has risen from one in 11 in 2005 to one in seven last year, according to a study by the NHS Information Centre. Lung cancer kills more people than any other form of cancer. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogCut red meat intake and don’t eat ham, say cancer researchersRelated posts:Alcohol to blame for 13,000 cancer cases a year in UKTurkey Ham?World Development Report: Why no mention of Paris?
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May 23 2011, 4:36am | Comments »
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London Olympics organisers appeal to protesters not to disrupt flame route

http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/05/18/london-olympics-organisers-appeal-to-protesters-not-to-disrupt-flame-route

Lord Coe says he is confident balance can be struck between security and celebration as he unveils locations of the Olmpic torch’s 70-day journey around the UK to herald the start of the London 2012 Olympic Games.This article titled “London Olympics organisers appeal to protesters not to disrupt flame route” was written by Owen Gibson, sports news correspondent, for The Guardian on Wednesday 18th May 2011 16.03 UTCLondon 2012 organisers called on protest groups not to disrupt the 8,000-mile journey of the Olympic flame around the UK, after unveiling its route for the first time.Lord Coe, chairman of the London organising committee of the Olympic Games (Locog), said he was confident the balance could be struck between guaranteeing the safety of the 8,000 torchbearers and ensuring a celebratory atmosphere.“We will make sure that the torch flame gets around the UK in the safest and most secure way, but at the same time we want communities to celebrate it and not [put it] behind a cordon of steel. I think we’ll get the balance right,” he said.He appealed to protest groups not to target the route of the torch, which according to tradition will be lit on Mount Olympus before beginning its journey around the UK at Land’s End on 18 May next year.“This is friendship, this is respect, this is showcasing extraordinary talent in local communities. I really don’t sit here thinking this will be a catalyst for massive demonstrations. I think people get this,” he said.The Beijing torch relay in 2008, the last that ventured beyond the borders of the host country before the International Olympic Committee (IOC) changed its policy, was chiefly remembered for protests and heavy-handed security. In Vancouver, protesters disrupted the last few days of the event, sparking counter-demonstrations from those supporting it.Coe, unveiling the first 74 locations on the torch’s 70-day tour of the UK, said the relay would be vital in igniting enthusiasm for the London Games beyond the capital and insisted that it would not be a giant marketing exercise for sponsors.“I am proud and excited as I envisage the moment that really marks the start of our Olympic celebrations in the UK and far beyond,” said Coe, who ran with the torch ahead of the Vancouver Games.“As it made its way around Canada, it drew renewable power from every community it passed through. As it made its journey across that huge land mass, Vancouver’s Games became Canada’s Games.“That is London 2012′s intention too. Ours will be a Games that takes place on your doorstep.”The 8,000 torchbearer places are divided between Locog and the three “presenting partners” – Coca-Cola, Lloyds TSB and Samsung – who will help fund the events that will take place at each overnight stop.As the only part of the Olympics that can be branded, it is likely the sponsors will have a heavy presence but, like Locog, they have promised to make the vast majority of their torchbearer places available to members of the public.Coe said more than 90% of places would be taken by the public, with half of the torchbearers aged between 12 and 24.Locog has already launched its own nominations campaign, inviting the public to put forward members of their community with inspiring stories.The sponsors will take a similar approach in distributing the tickets to the public and staff. The cast of public torchbearers is likely to be augmented by athletes and celebrities.The announcement has also sparked speculation about the likely identity of the final torchbearer who will light the cauldron in the Olympic stadium at the climax of the opening ceremony, with bookmakers installing Sir Steve Redgrave as favourite.The final route will take the torch to within an hour of 95% of the population across England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and six outlying islands. It will visit the Isle of Man, Guernsey, Jersey, Shetland, Orkney and the Isle of Lewis. Coe said Locog was also in advanced talks to take the torch to Dublin.British IOC member Sir Craig Reedie said the route would also pass UK sporting landmarks including Wimbledon, Old Trafford, St Andrew’s and Much Wenlock in Shropshire, the birthplace of the modern Olympics.The event will also be crucial to the cash-strapped British Olympic Association. Under the terms of its recent settlement with Locog after it backed down in a row over the division of any surplus from the Games, it will receive the royalties to two branded items of Olympic merchandise.In Vancouver, more than 3.5m pairs of red mittens were sold to those who lined the route to raise money for Canadian sport. The BOA will unveil its branded merchandise next year. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogLondon Olympics organisers appeal to protesters not to disrupt flame routeRelated posts:London Olympic organisers defend ‘peculiar’ ticket payment processLondon 2012 Olympics countdown clock stopsIran claims London 2012 Olympics logo spells ‘Zion’
May 18 2011, 11:57am | Comments »
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The day I (nearly) met Bob Dylan

http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/05/14/the-day-i-nearly-met-bob-dylan

Ten years ago, John Harris was within seconds of a meeting Bob Dylan – until Eric Clapton stole him away. Now he talks to those who have been granted an audience with rock’s greatest enigma.

This article titled “The day I (nearly) met Bob Dylan” was written by John Harris, for The Guardian on Saturday 14th May 2011 11.05 UTC Imagine this: since you were 11 years old, you have been convinced Bob Dylan is a genius. You own every album he has ever made, and your shelves are full of books whose titles attest to the great cloak of mystery that surrounds him: Behind the Shades, Wanted Man, Invisible Republic. You can quote his lyrics, and play dozens of his songs on the guitar. There are days when you find yourself revering him more than the Beatles, which is saying something. And then it happens: someone points you in the direction of a set of stairs and says it’s time for you to meet him, which produces an attack of nerves so strong that you fear you might pass out. As he winds down after playing in front of 10,000 people, what exactly are you going to say? “Hello Bob, you’re the reason I made a harmonica holder out of one of my mum’s coathangers in 1983 and tortured the neighbours with repeated renditions of Like a Rolling Stone, and I just wanted to say thanks”? No. “Hello Bob, I’ve always had trouble making narrative sense of your 1978 song Changing of the Guards, and wondered whether you could help?” Absolutely not. “Hello Bob, great show”? Please. Sadly, to kill this shaggy dog story before it runs away with us, when the dressing room door eventually swung open, Dylan wasn’t there: he’d been spirited away by Eric Clapton, someone reckoned. Which makes 11 May 2002 – the day I nearly met Bob Dylan – nothing to tell the grandchildren about, really. Thanks to favours pulled by a musician friend, I did, though, watch Dylan perform from the wings of the London Arena that night, and studied him as he left the stage. I noted that he was smaller than I imagined (5ft 7in, apparently), and that he walked with a strange gait, shuffling on his toes, almost like a boxer. He passed a foot or so in front of me: I nodded at him, and I think he nodded back. To me that was quite something, but that’s an indication of what hero-worship can do to you. On 24 May, Dylan will turn 70, an occasion that has already given rise to celebration concerts, cover stories, radio shows and more. Maya Angelou has dutifully praised him as “a great American artist”. To Bruce Springsteen, Dylan is “the father of my country”. There is much more of this stuff to come – a renewed outpouring of the kind of questions that tantalise me, and the millions of people who have been profoundly touched by his music. Most of them boil down to two conundrums: Who is Bob Dylan? And what does he want? Like most of the high-achieving musicians of his generation, Dylan will never quite escape the shadow of the 1960s, but he is one the few alumni of that decade whose new work still seems vital and interesting. His last album, 2009′s Together Through Life, had its moments, but if you really want to understand how great his recent-ish work has been, you should sample Time Out of Mind (1997), Love and Theft (2001) and Modern Times (2006): albums streaked with wit, existential insight and the rare sound of a rock musician building age and experience into every note they sing. Dylan’s voice is now shot to pieces compared to how it sounded 40-odd years ago, but I think that’s part of what makes his latterday stuff so good. Mick Jagger shakes his bum and attempts to convince his audience that time has stood still since the mid-70s; Dylan confronts us with not just his own mortality, but ours, too. As ever, he is surrounded by a cloud of ephemera and apocryphal chatter. No one really knows anything about his politics: he has expressed approving sentiments about Barack Obama, but recently caused howls of dismay when he played in China; yesterday, a very unexpected post appeared on bobdylan.com, in which he acknowledged that a collection of recent setlists had been given in advance to the authorities, claimed he hadn’t been censored (“we played all the songs that we intended to play”), and said nothing at all about whether he should have followed the advice of some outraged commentators and spoken at least a little truth to power while he was there. In 2000 I watched him in talkative mood at Wembley Arena, expressing his pleasure at being in the UK with reference to Britain’s efforts in the second world war. What he said probably had more to do with his Jewish upbringing than anything else, but they didn’t sound like the words of the liberal peacenik of common assumption: “We all know how Britain stood alone. That always meant a lot to the people I grew up with.” Dylan has starred in ads for the lingerie chain Victoria’s Secret and for the iPod. He is said to have been married at least three times, although only one of those unions has been public. An infinite number of questions buzz around the internet, none of which are ever anwered: having embraced born-again Christianity circa 1978, but then apparently rediscovered his Judaism, where is his spiritual head at? Does he really leave his tour bus parked in motorway service stations and go for spontaneous moonlit rambles across fields? And did he really once consider relocating to Crouch End? I can well remember the source of my idea of Dylan as a shadowy, unbelievably enigmatic presence: a BBC film titled Getting to Dylan, first screened in 1987, in which a team from the Omnibus programme followed him as he played the part of a faded rock star in a risible film called Hearts of Fire (also starring Rupert Everett). Weeks went by before he consented to be interviewed, but it eventually happened, in an on-set trailer near Toronto – and in 20 minutes, he allowed a rare glimpse of his essential condition. You can see the entire Getting to Dylan interview on YouTube (have a look for “BBC Dylan interview”): it remains an enduring portrait not just of who he was, but who he will probably always be, and what a strange and lonely business being Bob Dylan actually is. So I place a call to his interviewer, Christopher Sykes, now 65, who has the rare distinction of being one of the only film-makers who has trained a camera on Dylan and asked him questions. (Though he directed the acclaimed Dylan documentary No Direction Home, not even Martin Scorsese managed that.) “I really liked him,” Sykes tells me. “He was tremendously funny. Charming, I thought. And he is incredibly charismatic. You find yourself wondering: is this something about him, or is this something you bring to someone that famous? But sitting a few feet away from him is pretty scary. He’s got a way of looking at you that’s frightening. When he looks straight at you, you really do feel like he’s got some sort of x-ray vision; that he sees right through you.” It was partly the memory of that look that threw me when I thought I was about to meet him. “He looks like a … funny old Gypsy person,” Sykes continues. “You have this sense that he’s been around for an awfully long time. I remember thinking, ‘I bet if you look through medieval paintings, there’ll be a picture of him somewhere.’ It really does feel like he’s been around for ever.” Sykes is nonplussed by suggestions that Dylan did the interview in a state of narcotic refreshment (“He liked drinking Johnny Walker black label, and I think he smoked dope”), and recalls a recent occasion when he had dinner in Los Angeles with Dylan’s son, Jesse – who was reminded of the interview, and offered a very telling question: “Was he kind to you?” “Tender and really helpful,” is the verdict of the writer Adrian Deevoy, who was summoned to Philadelphia a few years later to interview Dylan for Q magazine. They ended up talking in the seaside town of Narragansett, Rhode Island – and Deevoy’s memories chime with one regular observation of Dylan’s lifestyle: that whereas some artists glide through a world of luxury, Dylan seems to live and work in a fascinatingly higgledy-piggledy way. “It sounds weird,” he tells me, “but we were all on a double bed in a very small motel room: Dylan, myself, his manager Jeff Rosen, a willowy Scandinavian woman, and a massive dog.” Mike Scott, the singer and chief creative mind in the Waterboys, became a smitten Dylan fan at much the same age that I did, watching his appearance in the film of George Harrison’s Concert For Bangladesh, and realising that “he was the great poet of the times”. In 1978, Scott and a friend went to see Dylan play at Earls Court, then followed his tour bus back to a hotel where they spied him sitting in the bar. “That was exciting,” he says. “‘Fucking hell! I’m going to meet Bob Dylan!’ We got half way across the bar, and these blurred, giant shapes suddenly appeared in front of us: bouncers, who escorted us off the premises.” Seven years later, when Dylan was in London recording with the ex-Eurythmic and rock Zelig Dave Stewart, Scott and two of his band got a call, and were summoned to a north London recording studio. “That felt like crossing the other half of the room,” he says: the collected musicians spent two hours jamming, while Dylan spurned singing in favour of playing “burbling, non-stop lead guitar”. Scott recalls being perplexed by his refusal to step up to the microphone, but feeling thrilled when Dylan told him he was a fan of the Waterboys’ big hit The Whole of the Moon. Some time later the phone rang again, and Scott found himself in a rented house in Holland Park. “We hung out with him for a couple of hours. He played us a record by the McPeak Family, folk musicians from Ulster, and he gave me a cassette of an American Indian poet called John Trudell.” And what was Dylan like? “Puckish. Humorous. In the studio, he’d been very quiet and closed in on himself. But now he was gregarious: exactly what I’d want Bob Dylan to be like. It was great.” Dylan told them tales about the presence of Vikings in his native Minnesota, introduced Scott to his kids, and shared a herbal moment with him. “I don’t know whether you can say this,” says Scott, “but I’ve smoked a joint that Bob Dylan rolled, and he’s smoked a joint that I rolled.” Self-evidently, I cannot compete with any of that, but still: during 30-odd years, Dylan has powerfully spoken to me about love, loss, life, death, sadness and contentment, and he still does. When I recently moved house, it rather pains me to admit that a freshly acquired set of his CDs, faithful to the original mono versions, came with me in the car, lest anything should happen to them. Thanks to a moment of carelessness in Mississippi, I am proud to say that I own a speeding ticket issued on Highway 61. The last book I finished was a collection of writing about Dylan by the American author and thinker Greil Marcus; I’m about to start an updated version of the aforementioned biography Behind the Shades, by Clinton Heylin – 902 pages, which seems to me a very satisfactory length indeed. I have seen Dylan play at least 15 times, and I’ll probably keep doing so until his so-called Never Ending Tour comes to a close. It can be a frustrating business – certainly, I wish he wouldn’t endlessly change the phrasing of just about everything he sings, sometimes in the manner of a wheezing pub crooner. But in between the moments you’re left guessing which song he’s actually playing, there are always enough flashes of greatness to justify the effort, and occasions when just about everything aligns correctly. In 1995, Dylan leapt on stage at the Brixton Academy without his guitar, sang while waggling his legs in the style of the young Elvis, and delivered a fantastically rambunctious show that had me laughing with pleasure. In 2001, I saw him at Stirling Castle: probably the single best concert I have seen him play, full of restraint and tenderness perfectly suited to a summer twilight. The essential thing, though, is this: whatever happens, you can surely take great delight in looking toward the stage and saying, “Look – it’s Bob Dylan.” And then there is the excellence of so many of the songs he has written as he tumbles towards old age – such as Ain’t Talkin’, the final song from Modern Times: “Ain’t talkin’, just walkin’/ Through this weary world of woe,” he sings. “Heart burnin’, still yearnin’/ No one on earth would ever know.” How beautifully put, and how very true.

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May 14 2011, 3:17pm | Comments »
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Health agency issues Olympics emergency warning

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Health Protection Agency says upheaval caused by its abolition could pose ‘extreme risks’ during the London 2012 Olympic Games

This article titled “Health agency issues Olympics emergency warning” was written by James Meikle and Owen Gibson, for The Guardian on Thursday 5th May 2011 16.30 UTC The NHS’s main public health body says its planned abolition weeks before the 2012 Olympics could compromise emergency responses if there are serious incidents at the games. The Health Protection Agency (HPA) warns the upheaval generated by huge organisational changes across the health service could pose extreme risks when Britain hosts the world’s biggest sporting event next summer. There is “high potential” for funds aimed at protecting the public at the event to be cut, it says. In the past, the risk to public health at the Olympics has come from incidents as diverse as food poisoning and terrorism. The agency is responsible for disease control and monitoring as well as scientific and public health advice during emergencies. Its responsibilities are to be absorbed within the Department of Health. Other authorities which tackle such crises are also in turmoil, with staff leaving primary care trusts well before they are abolished in 2013, while local councils are being hit by spending cuts. Labour has demanded the shakeup should “at the very least” be put on hold until after the London Olympics. Diane Abbott, the shadow health minister, said: “David Cameron seems to be prioritising driving through his NHS reorganisation above public safety during the Olympics. “For this Tory-led government to push our public health services into a state of chaos and abolish the current agency right before London 2012, with people from all over the world arriving in London, and the eyes of the entire world on Britain, is nothing short of a disgrace.” The revelation of the HPA’s concern over the Tories’ NHS plans comes as public health professionals fear their voice is being ignored, even during the government’s two-month listening exercise. They have no members on the Future Forum group overseeing the exercise, headed by GP Steve Field. The timetable for the shakeup has already been hit by the break in the progress of legislation – meaning the first changes are now scheduled for July 2012, the month in which the games begin, instead of April. That shift has led the HPA to say the risk of “compromising” national emergency responses during the Olympics is now even higher than when it first raised the issue in its official response to the shakeup in March. It warned then that there might be “considerable risks to the national capability to launch multi-agency responses to incidents and emergencies”. The agency said the planned changes would create “considerable uncertainty” and “preparation for, and response to, incidents arising in association with the Olympic and Paralypmic Games will be compromised” unless an appropriate structure replaced the current one. In a statement to the Guardian, the agency said: “Deferring the changes to July 2012 would increase the risk. We have made the Department of Health aware of our views concerning the risks in delaying.” It said a small number of its 3,850 staff had already left, citing concerns about the independence of their work and advice if they were moved to the health department. The HPA’s March document states that the move could also undermine wider public and professional confidence. Abbott said: “It is time that this government listened to public health professionals. Alarm bells are now ringing within the Health Protection Agency, local authorities and also local primary care trusts, and increasingly there will also be concern amongst the public. “We have worked hard to bring the Olympic Games to Britain. It should be a time in which we showcase what Britain is about to the rest of the world. The priority should be public safety and ensuring that we are prepared to respond robustly to major incidents and emergencies.” Lindsey Davies, former national director of pandemic influenza preparedness at the Department of Health who is president of the Faculty of Public Health, said: “The entire public health community has grave concerns about the potential risks from the timing of the changes.” Although there have been few major health scares linked to past Olympics, there was a terror attack at the 1972 Munich Olympics and a bombing which killed two people in Atlanta in 1996. A stomach bug struck competitors at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi last year. The agency says the games will raise the risk of diseases spreading due to the influx of international visitors and from mass gatherings in restricted spaces during the games. Early identification will help reduce the risk of widespread exposure and minimise the impact on visitors as well as local communities. Other concerns include heatstroke among crowds. About 300,000 people a day are expected to be in the Olympic Park during the height of the games. The Department of Health said it was working to ensure “business continuity” was maintained during the transition. A team had been established to ensure the the ministry and the NHS is able “to respond to major emergencies continues to be robust and to ensure the requirements of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games are met. Work is under way to test how the proposed new systems would function during the 2012 Games. This work will focus and strengthen safety at the 2012 Games”. It is understood Olympics organisers are aware of the concerns but have not been directly involved in discussions. Thousands of athletes begin arriving in Britain for training camps in the UK in June 2012. The Olympic village opens in mid-July and the games run from 27 July to 12 August 2012. The Paralympics run from the end of August into September. A total of 17,000 athletes and officials from about 200 countries will stay in the village on the Olympic Park, in east London. In total, more than 10,500 athletes will compete in 26 sports based in various venues around the capital and beyond. Sailing will be based in Weymouth and the Olympic football tournament will be played in various grounds around the country. According to the detailed transport plan released last month, the busiest day of the games – Saturday 4 August – will see 700,000 ticket holders moving around London to watch sessions at 11 venues. In all, 8.8m tickets are available for the Games, with 6.6m on sale to the general public. About 20,000 broadcast and print journalists will also descend on London.

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May 5 2011, 12:51pm | Comments »
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Flybe profit warning sends share price crashing down

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Flybe shares drop 25% as airline admits cash-strapped consumers are cutting back on air travel

This article titled “Flybe profit warning sends share price crashing down” was written by Dan Milmo, for The Guardian on Thursday 5th May 2011 16.42 UTC Flybe’s £215m flotation has come crashing down as the carrier’s shares shed 25% of their value in the wake of a profit warning over waning consumer appetite for air travel. The Exeter-based regional carrier bases its appeal on “affordable travel from the most convenient airport” but admitted that lower high street spending in the UK had affected demand for cheap flights since the new year, with domestic routes among the hardest hit. Despite warning of cash-strapped customers, Flybe also announced a £3 fuel surcharge on all flights from September. Flybe said the slowdown in consumer outlay, already indicated by trading woes at high street names such as HMV and Mothercare, had affected “discretionary spend” on air travel and triggered significant analysts’ downgrades. Flybe said it expected pre-tax profits for this year to be broadly in line with the 2010/11 figures, which put it heavily out of kilter with analysts’ expectations. Investors ignored Flybe’s defence of its “resilient and flexible” business model of flying from small airports such as Southampton and Norwich, and sold the shares heavily. Shareholders had expected a pre-tax profit of about £36m, not the £22m indicated in the trading update, and Flybe’s shares slumped 25% to 172.50p, far below the flotation price of 295p last December. Flybe’s new investors included George Soros, the hedge fund tycoon, who acquired a 3.4% stake on flotation and whose more assured bets included starting a run on the pound in 1992. British Airways owns a further 15% of the business. One of the pioneers of add-on charges including baggage fees when it rebranded from British European in 2002, Flybe said the £3 fuel surcharge would be dropped if the price of Brent crude fell below $75 (£45.60) per barrel for 28 consecutive days; its current price is $117 per barrel. Flybe also indicated cutbacks on its domestic routes as it flagged the possible disposal of surplus aircraft, believed to include the Bombardier Q400 turboprop planes that are used on its UK services. In its trading update the company did not expand on its strategy of building its presence in continental Europe but it is understood that Flybe is standing by plans to add 35 Embraer aircraft to its 68-strong fleet, with the option of buying 105 more. The £66m float proceeds have been earmarked for the expansion, which includes codeshare deals where it operates flights on another carrier’s behalf. Iata warning The International Air Transport Association (Iata) warned that the financial markets have taken a bearish stance on airlines. Airline share prices have underperformed stock markets by 17% this year, Iata said, and investors now fear that carriers will be hard hit by higher fuel costs – about a quarter of the industry’s cost base – and the consequent effect on demand as higher prices hit sales. “Financial markets, bullish over airlines through 2010, now believe the industry will suffer more than most in this high fuel cost and demand-shock environment,” said Iata. Flybe said demand from business travellers, who account for 45% of its customers, remained strong. “This sector has proved very resilient,” said Flybe, echoing recent comments by Iata, which said demand for business class travel was holding up more strongly than in the back of the cabin. The premium airline market grew 7.7% in February, compared with a 3.3% improvement in economy class traffic.

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May 5 2011, 12:46pm | Comments »
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Wildfires blaze across parts of Britain after hottest April on record

http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/05/04/wildfires-blaze-across-parts-of-britain-after-hottest-april-on-record

Wild Fires hit Northern Ireland, north-west England, and several areas of Scotland including the Balmoral estate, as well as Swinley Forest in Berkshire

This article titled “Wildfires blaze across parts of Britain after hottest April on record” was written by Helen Carter, for The Guardian on Wednesday 4th May 2011 12.53 UTC Heathland fires have been burning across parts of the UK for days amid unprecedented dry weather, with no respite on the horizon until the weekend. The hottest April on record, which registered only 21% of expected rainfall in England and Wales, has hampered the efforts of firefighters and caused vast areas of parched land to go up in flames. Blazes fanned by high winds have been seen in areas of Scotland, England and Northern Ireland, with hundreds of firefighters called in and helicopters used to drop water in the worst-affected regions. The weather forecast shows little chance of any substantial rain falling before Thursday, with central and eastern England having to wait until the weekend. Roads have been closed and 170 firefighters have been called to the Swinley Forest area of Berkshire, where a number of fires broke out. In the north-west of England in Lancashire, fires began on moorland in Belmont, near Bolton, as well as in Ormskirk and Bacup. Police in Northern Ireland are investigating reports of a man seen with a petrol can close to one of the worst gorse fires for years in the Mourne mountains. There were reports of two youths lighting fires in south Armagh. Hundreds of acres of land are being destroyed and homes and livestock threatened by fires which burned for much of the bank holiday weekend in counties Down, Armagh and Tyrone. Scotland, where the royal estate of Balmoral is affected among several other areas, and Northern Ireland had just two-thirds of the rain normally expected in April. The average temperature in England was the hottest since records began 353 years ago. Despite the dry weather, the Environment Agency is not planning a hosepipe ban. A spokesman said: “We feel confident there is enough water to see out spring and summer without restrictions on the public supply.”

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May 4 2011, 10:56am | Comments »
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Portuguese learn price of €78bn debt bailout

http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/05/04/portuguese-learn-price-of-e78bn-debt-bailout

Health and education spending in Portugal to be cut by €745m, state pensions reduced and major building projects axed

This article titled “Portuguese learn price of €78bn debt bailout” was written by Giles Tremlett, for The Guardian on Wednesday 4th May 2011 15.20 UTC

Portugal woke up to the price of its €78bn (£70bn) bailout on Wednesday as new airports and high-speed rail lines were sacrificed in a package of austerity measures and the government pledged to freeze pensions and shrink the civil service. Lisbon’s new international airport, already on hold, and the building of a high-speed rail link between Lisbon and Oporto will now be put back until after 2013, according to state news agency Lusa. Health and education spending will be cut by €745m, civil service pay and pensions will be frozen, and people on state pensions above €1,500 a month will have them reduced. Civil service staffing is to be squeezed by 1% a year in central government, while regional administrations and town halls will be told to shed 2% of their employees annually. Portugal’s banks will take up to €12bn of the bailout funds to rebuild their capital ratios, according to reports. The banks would have to raise their core tier one capital ratio – a gauge of higher quality capital that mainly comprises equity and retained earnings – to 9% at the end of this year and to 10% by the end of 2012, Reuters said. The country will also carry out a fire sale of the nationalised Banco Português de Negócios (BPN) bank. “The authorities are launching a process to sell BPN on an accelerated schedule and without a minimum price,” according to a memorandum of understanding seen by the Guardian, which added that the sale should be finished in July. Portugal is expected to reduce public spending by 3.4% of its GDP this year and raise an extra 1.7% of GDP by raising taxes on cars, tobacco and electricity and getting rid of income and corporation tax loopholes. A detailed investigation of public-private partnerships (PPPs), which have been used for building hospitals, roads and rail lines, will be carried out to see if they are hiding extra government debt. New PPP projects will be suspended. José Sócrates, Portugal’s caretaker prime minister, announced the areas that would remain untouched when he explained the bailout during a television address to the nation on Tuesday night. These included pensions for the worse-off and the retirement age. But he failed to reveal what austerity measures came with the bailout package, beyond saying they would be similar to those rejected by parliament in March. The March defeat brought down his minority socialist government and a snap election was called for 5 June. Polls show the opposition Social Democrat Party (PSD), which rejected the March austerity package, may win that vote. Representatives of the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the European Central Bank met Social Democrat leaders on Wednesday morning to seek their backing for the plan. “The PSD will give its opinion on what it has read and heard late today or early tomorrow,” said Carlos Moedas, the party’s economics advisor, after the meeting. Social Democrat leaders had already indicated they might change elements of any bailout-related austerity package if they were elected to government, although always with the aim of hitting this year’s target of reducing the budget deficit to 5.9% of GDP. The IMF said: “We have said from the start that it is important that any agreement have multi-party support and we shall continue in our efforts with opposition parties to show that this is the case.” Portugal managed to raise €1.12bn euros in three-month treasury bills today with demand almost doubling the offer, but investors insisted on a 4.65% interest rate – up from 4.05% two weeks ago. Jonathan Loynes, chief European economist at Capital Economics in London, said the bailout might not be enough to stave off restructuring: “It won’t put an end to speculation that – along with Greece and perhaps others – it will sooner or later need to undertake some form of debt restructuring.”

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May 4 2011, 10:30am | Comments »
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Supermarkets kill free markets as well as our communities

http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/05/03/supermarkets-kill-free-markets-as-well-as-our-communities

Across the country local shops have been wiped out by supermarkets.

This article titled “Supermarkets kill free markets as well as our communities” was written by Peter Wilby, for The Guardian on Tuesday 3rd May 2011 20.00 UTC A few weeks ago our last local butcher closed. When we moved to this suburban Essex town 40 years ago, it had six specialist shops selling fresh meat. The last independent greengrocer disappeared nearly two decades ago. Happily, we still have an independent baker close by, and even a fishmonger a brisk 25-minute walk away. But for how long? Across the country the small retailer is being wiped out. In the whole of Britain there are fewer than 1,000 specialist fishmongers, 7,000 butchers and 4,000 greengrocers, and barely 3,000 independent bakeries. In all these categories, the number of specialists has fallen by 90% since the 1950s, and at least 40% in the last decade alone. They have been driven out by supermarkets, which now sell 97% of our food, with four chains accounting for 76%. Next to the motor car, nothing else has so radically changed the look and texture of our environment over the last half-century – creating what the New Economics Foundation calls “clone-town Britain” where every high street has the same shops. Until now politicians have had almost nothing to say about it. However, last Sunday the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, was asked about the “Tesco-isation” of high streets – a subject prompted by two riots in Bristol over a Tesco store – and said: “I think that is an issue, yes, and it is something that we’re looking at.” Hardly a rallying cry, but an encouraging change from the standard political response, endorsed by the Competition Commission in 2008, that consumers like the low prices, range of goods and quality offered by supermarkets. An advance too from Labour’s position in Scotland: in February it helped defeat the SNP minority government’s proposal to impose a “supermarket tax” on retail premises worth £750,000 or more. Even the “good for consumers” defence of the big stores requires scrutiny. Supermarkets may offer mangoes and kiwi fruit as a blessed relief to generations who recall the surly greengrocer grunting “no demand for it” when asked for anything out of the ordinary. But the option to buy locally grown produce is increasingly closed off; many varieties of English fruit disappeared long ago. Supermarkets stock food not for its taste, but for its longevity and appearance. Conventional economists count numbers, assuming that a huge increase in toilet roll colours represents an unqualified gain to the consumer. They neglect more subtle dimensions of choice. The central issue, however, is whether “what the consumer wants” should close down the argument. What people want as consumers may not be what they want as householders, community members, producers, employees or entrepreneurs. The loss of small shops drains a locality’s economic and social capital. Money spent in independent retail outlets tends to stay in the community, providing work for local lawyers and accountants, plumbers and decorators, window cleaners and builders. US research finds that every $100 spent at a local store generates 60% more local economic activity than $100 spent in a chain store down the road. It also finds that, after the arrival of a big supermarket, participation in local charities, churches, campaign groups and even voting declines sharply. As Jane Jacobs argued in The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1960), communities are created by myriad small daily encounters: getting cooking tips from the greengrocer, hearing about a job from the butcher, recommending a good plumber at the bakery, exchanging opinions in the pub. “The sum of such casual, public contact at the local level,” wrote Jacobs, “…is a feeling for the public identity of people, a web of public respect and trust.” Supermarkets minimise human contact in the interests of efficiency and convenience, most recently by introducing self-service lanes for payment. As one critic put it, they “cut the threads that hold an engaged community together”. Such issues should concern the right as much as the left: indeed, the most hard-hitting recent report on supermarkets came from ResPublica, the “red Tory” thinktank, and points out that only 12% of Britons hold business assets – and that, when monopoly goes unchecked and a sector of the economy is in effect closed to new entrants (as the grocery sector largely is), we start to “practise capitalism without capitalists”. Becoming a small retailer once allowed an ordinary working man or woman, and particularly an Asian migrant, to aspire – often after redundancy – to independence, self-reliance and upward social mobility. Moreover, supermarkets have become not only a monopoly, giving consumers a diminishing choice of food outlets, but also a monopsony, giving suppliers little choice of buyers for their produce. They have used this power ruthlessly, forcing down prices and increasingly dictating to suppliers what they produce, where they produce it and how they package it. The casualty rate for small producers, unable to survive on the supermarkets’ terms, is almost as great as for small shops. The effect on wages and working conditions in the food industry is well known, but the effect on what is supposed to be a free market is less often considered. Eastern European regimes, dictating from remote, central offices who could grow how much of what, were once regarded with horror. Even western governments were denounced when they adopted industrial policies to choose “winners” and “losers”. Tesco does that every day, and its suppliers have as little recourse to legal or political redress as a Soviet peasant.

The supermarkets are classic examples of what has been called the tyranny of small choices. Any rational individual will buy most of his or her food and household goods from a big store because prices are lower, choice greater, quality more consistent, and service speedier. I may have the time and money to tour smaller shops. My neighbour, while recognising he may get something better from a specialist retailer, may judge that it will not be so reliably better (for my parents’ generation, supermarkets were liberators from the risks of mouldy cheddar and maggoty apples) as to justify the extra cost and time. Neither of us will take much account of community cohesion or local employment, still less of the dangers of monopoly and monopsony. This is where we should look to politicians for a larger view. They need not confront supermarkets directly, which clearly terrifies them. But they can partially re-create, and preserve what is left of, the independent retail sector through, for example, tax concessions; a community right to take over or find buyers for threatened businesses; and enhanced powers for local councils to protect retail competitiveness. This is an issue – straddling political and ideological boundaries and putting flesh on the abstractions of communities, big societies and social mobility – that Miliband and the Labour leadership, encouraged by the stirrings in Bristol, should seize.

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May 3 2011, 5:17pm | Comments »
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Best in dough! French bakers battle to bag best baguette bounty

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Paris bakers competition. With a punishing criteria and several entries stakes are high at a Parisian contest seeking to identify best stick of bread

This article titled “Best in dough! French bakers battle to bag best baguette bounty” was written by Agnes Poirier in Paris, for The Guardian on Tuesday 3rd May 2011 21.00 UTC They are hot, golden and crispy. Their makers hold them like saints’ relics and the judges in charge of inspecting them wear white gloves. These are the prized entries competing to be named Paris’s best baguette. At the head office of the bakers and pâtissiers’ union in the heart of Paris, young and old bakers queue up to enter the competition, first held in 1994. Pascal Guenard, a baker and pâtissier for more than 20 years is entering a baguette in the contest for the first time. He wears his white uniform and has flour in his hair; his pair of baguettes smell divine. “It’s the first time I’ve competed for best baguette but I came fourth once in the best croissant competition,” he said. “This award is very important for us and for our clients. I want them to be proud and be able to say that their baker makes the best baguette in Paris. It’s also a way for us artisans to fight the big supermarkets which sell crap baguettes for 50 cents. At €1.10, our baguette had better be good.” On the second floor, white-gloved ladies give a number to each pair of baguettes, register every baker’s name and address, and wish them “bonne chance”. Each baguette is then measured and weighed. This is the guillotine moment. Baguettes must measure between 55 and 70cm and weigh between 240g and 310g, criteria that were established 20 years ago. “We had to set up rules,” said Jacques Mabille, president of the bakers union. “During the war, baguette’s crumb was grey. The French grew to hate it. “So after the war, the whiter the crumb, the happier the people were. However, to get a very white crumb, you must compromise on the overall quality of the bread and on its taste. So we chose to return to a more balanced baguette and set up a few rules. … Today, a good baguette has a creamy-looking crumb, a crispy crust, a distinctive flavour and a delicious smell of wheat. And it shouldn’t have more than 18g of salt.” Each year, a third of baguettes are disqualified, usually because they are too heavy and too long. At the end of the queue stands Lahoussaine Damer, 26, a baker and pâtissier since the age of 18. “It’s the third time I’ve competed but I’ve never got into the top 10. This time, I have tried to perfect the cooking. Also, I was careful with the measurement and weight. They are ruthless. My baguette was disqualified last year for one centimetre.” Which French baker does he admire most? “Djibril Bodian.” Bodian, a member of the jury this year, was the winner of last year’s competition. He came to France from Senegal at the age of six, and fell in love with bread through his father, who set up a boulangerie in the Paris suburb of Pantin. After he won, Bodian became the French president’s personal baker, delivering his baguettes every day to the Elysée Palace. “We were never complimented by the Elysée Palace but were told that if nothing was said then it was a good sign, that they liked it” he says. “We have today a whole new generation of bakers in Paris, of African origin, from the Maghreb but also many Japanese and Cambodians,” said Mabille. “Baguettes have universal appeal. Besides, bakers are usually trained in French schools with traditional recipes and savoir faire.” A total of 174 baguettes were entered for the prize, with 38 disqualified. Among the 15 judges was a fromager, a teacher at the boulangerie school of Paris, and a food critic, as well as six Parisians chosen randomly after they entered a lottery. They touched, stroked, chewed, smelled, and even listened to the baguettes, inspecting their backs and bellies. Their colour and holes were closely inspected and intensely debated. Some judges spat out their samples . Three hours later, the verdict was given: after competing for the eighth time, Pascal Barillon, from Montmartre has won the best baguette accolade. As of Wednesday, he will be Carla Bruni-Sarkozy’s official supplier.

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May 3 2011, 5:06pm | Comments »
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Arts venues band together to fund new festival of finest radical theatre

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Not Edinburgh or London but a Nottingham international arts and theatre festival. Nottingham’s Neat 11 theatre festival opens on 26 May 2011.

This article titled “Arts venues band together to fund new festival of finest radical theatre” was written by Vanessa Thorpe, for The Observer on Saturday 30th April 2011 23.06 UTC It might not seem the right time to launch an international arts festival, but Nottingham is to take this fearless step. Later this spring the city will hold neat11, the first Nottingham European arts and theatre festival, to prove the way to beat the cuts in the arts is to pool resources. Nottingham Playhouse has joined the city council, the regeneration body One Nottingham and many of the city’s other arts venues – including the Theatre Royal, Lakeside Arts Centre, and the Broadway Cinema – to present a range of radical theatre, music, film and visual art from across Europe between 26 May and 12 June. The festival will showcase the work of leading foreign companies such as Det Norske Teatret, Deutsches Theater and Theatre Nowy alongside the work of British companies including Cheek By Jowl and Gob Squad. In the face of reduced grants from Arts Council England, funding of £98,000 has been earmarked for the project. “This is work you would not be able to see anywhere else in the country,” said Giles Croft, the artistic director of Nottingham Playhouse. “Audiences will be able to see great performers from Kosovo, Bulgaria and Denmark. And for me, key highlights are Deutsches Theater’s productionq of Woyzeck by Georg Büchner, using the songs of Tom Waits, along with the only UK performance this year of Cheek by Jowl’s Three Sisters, performed in Russian. I am also really looking forward to Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther by Det Norske Teatret from Norway.” Croft argues the festival will emphasise the “strong cultural life” of Nottingham. “Bringing this kind of work here will also demonstrate that it is a European city. We are hoping we can bring the festival back in two years time and establish it as a bienniale. I am absolutely confident we can make it a success.”

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May 3 2011, 5:29am | Comments »
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MPs step up pressure to remutualise Northern Rock

http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/05/02/mps-step-up-pressure-to-remutualise-northern-rock

Support grows for motion tabled by MP Chuka Umunna to return nationalised lender to the mutual sector. That means the Northern Rock Bank would become the Northern Rock Building Society again, a mutual building society without any shareholders.

This article titled “MPs step up pressure to remutualise Northern Rock” was written by Jill Treanor, for The Observer on Saturday 30th April 2011 23.06 UTC Political pressure for the remutualisation of Northern Rock is gathering strength: 100 members of parliament have signed an early day motion backing the return of the nationalised lender to the mutual sector. Chuka Umunna, the Labour MP who tabled the motion, said 19 MPs had lent their support in the past week. Northern Rock and UK Financial Investments (UKFI), which looks after the taxpayer’s interests in the bailed-out banks, have appointed Deutsche Bank to explore options for the Newcastle-based lender. Deutsche will present ideas to UKFI that could be used as the basis of any recommendations made about Northern Rock to the chancellor. The lender, notorious for granting 125% mortgages before the financial crisis, was nationalised by Labour in February 2008 after it suffered the first UK bank run in living memory and thousands of anxious depositors queued round the block to withdraw funds amid fears about its solvency. After it was rescued by the government, the bank was split to create Northern Rock plc, the “good” bank that has resumed lending, and Northern Rock Asset Management, the “bad” bank that was merged with Bradford & Bingley’s mortgage business, another nationalised casualty of the credit crunch. Deutsche is looking at the options for Northern Rock plc. While Labour was in office, the then Treasury minister Sarah McCarthy-Fry revealed that ways of remutualising Northern Rock had been considered, but warned: “I’m not pretending it’s going to be easy.” Coventry building society has presented itself as being interested in linking up with Northern Rock, although little information has emerged as to how it might facilitate any deal. An analysis by Landman Economics has suggested that “profit participating deferred shares” could help the government recoup the money tied up in the lender. Landman’s analysis concludes that a trade sale or stock market flotation would not raise enough funds to pay back the taxpayer in full. Labour ex-minister Gareth Thomas, who has campaigned for the Rock to be remutualised, said he had doubts about whether George Osborne was interested. “I do not believe the Treasury is taking this seriously,” he said. Another option is merging the 70 Northern Rock branches with the 600 that Lloyds Banking Group has to sell to comply with EU rules on state aid.

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May 2 2011, 9:51am | Comments »
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Herbal remedies banned as new EU rules take effect

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Manufacturers and herbal practitioners say strict guidelines aimed at improving safety could force them out of business.

This article titled “Herbal remedies banned as new EU rules take effect” was written by Robin McKie, for The Observer on Saturday 30th April 2011 23.06 UTC New EU rules came into force at the weekend banning hundreds of herbal remedies. The laws are aimed at protecting consumers from potentially damaging “traditional” medicines. Under the directive, herbal medicines will now have to be registered. Products must meet safety, quality and manufacturing standards, and come with information outlining possible side-effects. Herbal practitioners and manufacturers say they fear the new rules could force them out of business. Research conducted for the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in 2009 showed that 26% of adults in the UK had taken a herbal medicine in the last two years, mostly bought over the counter in health food shops and pharmacies. Commonly used ingredients already registered include echinacea, which is used against colds, St John’s wort, used for depression and anxiety, and valerian, which is claimed to ease insomnia. The agency said it hoped to promote a more cautious approach to the use of herbal medicines after a study found that 58% of respondents believed these products were safe because they are “natural”. In fact, herbal remedies can have harmful side-effects. St John’s Wort can stop the contraceptive pill working, while ginkgo and ginseng are known to interfere with the blood-thinning drug warfarin. And in February the MHRA issued a warning about the herbal weight loss product Herbal Flos Lonicerae (Herbal Xenicol) Natural Weight Loss Formula, after tests showed it contained more than twice the prescribed dose of a banned substance. To date, the industry has been covered by the 1968 Medicines Act, drawn up when only a handful of herbal remedies were available and the number of herbal practitioners was very small. From now, manufacturers will have to prove their products have been made to strict standards and contain a consistent and clearly marked dose. Remedies already on sale will be allowed to stay on the shelves until their expiry date. The agency said there had been 211 applications for approval of herbal remedies so far, with 105 granted and the rest still under consideration. Approved remedies will come with a logo marked THR.

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May 2 2011, 9:46am | Comments »
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Tesco protesters charged after second night of violence in Bristol

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Police appeal for informants to identify others involved in violent disorder surrounding Tesco opening in Bristol Stokes Croft riots area

This article titled “Tesco protesters charged after second night of violence in Bristol” was written by Jamie Doward, for The Observer on Saturday 30th April 2011 23.06 UTC Two people have been charged following a second round of violent protests against the opening of a Tesco shop in Bristol. Stephen Carroll, 32, was charged with assaulting a police officer and criminal damage. A 17-year-old, who cannot be named, is accused of violent disorder and theft. The two were among 30 people detained after violence in the Stokes Croft area of the city saw officers and protesters injured early on Friday. A further 13 men and two women remain in custody, while 12 men have been released on bail pending further inquiries, police said. The violence, which saw stones, bottles and other missiles thrown, came a week after high-profile demonstrations followed the shop’s opening. CCTV images of more than 80 people were issued by police following the first eruption, which came after officers raided a flat in search of petrol bombs they believed were about to be thrown at the shop. “I am appealing to the community, to residents, and traders and other people whose lives have been severely disrupted, whose property may have been damaged and whose personal safety may have been put at risk by the violence,” said assistant chief constable Rod Hansen. “I urge people to study the photographs, and if you think you know any of these people and where they might be, please contact us.” Police said Thursday night’s demonstration began as a “good-spirited event” attended by eight neighbourhood beat officers. But the crowd grew from about 250 to more than 400.

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May 2 2011, 9:33am | Comments »
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China’s insatiable thirst for fine wine threatens to burst Bordeaux bubble

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Bordeaux prices are soaring as buyers in Hong Kong develop a taste for the famed French wine, and this is why you can’t find a reasonably priced real claret in England any more, amongst all the new world wines that fill up the majority of shelf space

This article titled “China’s insatiable thirst for fine wine threatens to burst Bordeaux bubble” was written by Jamie Doward, for The Observer on Saturday 30th April 2011 23.05 UTC It is one of the most hotly debated topics in the world of wine: is the Bordeaux bubble about to burst? The price of one of France’s most celebrated wines has soared over the last 12 months as British buyers compete with an increasing number of Chinese oenophiles to snap up the all too precious cases of claret. With the likes of Chris de Burgh and Sir David Frost recently selling their Bordeaux collections for six-figure sums, attention has focused on the top-tier wines such as Château Lafite, cases of which are going for as much as £15,000. At the start of the year, Lord Lloyd-Webber sold off a large part of his cellar, including a 12-bottle lot of Château Pétrus 1982 for $77,564 (around £48,500). Berry Brothers recently sold three cases of the same vintage for £58,000 a case. A dozen bottles of a typical second-tier Bordeaux was selling for around £600 a year ago, according to Berry Brothers, the wine merchants, but is now going for anything up to £2,000. But experts say the demand for Bordeaux is now so great that even wines from less well known producers have seen prices rocket. A decision by the Hong Kong government to abolish wine and beer duties has fuelled the demand. Berry Brothers estimates that last year, of the £110m of Bordeaux it sold “en primeur” – while still in the barrel – some £30m worth went through Hong Kong, compared with just £10m the year before. With en primeur sales of the 2010 vintage, which was apparently a fantastic year, soon to take place, the company is anticipating substantial demand from Chinese buyers. “We’ve got fewer than 100 customers in China, so you can imagine what happens if more Chinese people get a thirst for Bordeaux,” said Simon Staples, sales and marketing director at Berry Brothers. Intriguingly, the demand among Chinese buyers is only for red wine and only for Bordeaux. “Burgundy is much more complicated, the knowledge among Chinese buyers isn’t there yet, whereas Bordeaux is much easier to understand,” Staples said. “They want red wine; it’s a male thing, it’s good for the heart, good for the libido.” Staples has remortgaged his home three times in the last 10 years (in 2000, 2005 and 2009) to buy Bordeaux. Last year he recommended that his mother-in-law buy five cases of a particular Bordeaux at £2,400. These are now selling for £7,800. Chateaux producing the wine have responded to the surge in interest, investing in sophisticated machinery and a more rigorous selection policy for their grapes. A taste among a new generation of drinkers to consume Bordeaux much earlier than their predecessors has been driven by an earlier ripening of the grapes, in part down to longer, hotter summers in France. Vineyards have also started to strip leaves to give grapes more sun while leaving them longer on the vine so they are softer and sweeter. “It’s coincided with a new style of Bordeaux,” said Adam Lechmere, the news editor at Decanter magazine. “The vintages are drinkable much younger. You used to have to lay them down for 15 years or so, but now they’re softer and don’t have such harsh tannins.” Staples is confident heightened global demand means Bordeaux prices will not fall even if the UK economy enters a double dip. But others are wary. “People who work in the City tell me this has all the hallmarks of a Bordeaux bubble,” Lechmere said.

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May 1 2011, 1:17pm | Comments »

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Andy Roberts

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Flybe profit warning sends share price crashing down

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Portuguese learn price of €78bn debt bailout

Supermarkets kill free markets as well as our communities

Best in dough! French bakers battle to bag best baguette bounty

Arts venues band together to fund new festival of finest radical theatre

MPs step up pressure to remutualise Northern Rock

Herbal remedies banned as new EU rules take effect

Tesco protesters charged after second night of violence in Bristol

China’s insatiable thirst for fine wine threatens to burst Bordeaux bubble

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