For years Munther Fahmi has been living in the city of his birth on a series of tourist visas after his permanent residency lapsed. Now the authorities have warned they may not issue any more On the edge of the busy forecourt of Jerusalem’s world-famous American Colony hotel, Munther Fahmi is in his usual spot; sitting in the bookshop that has become a haven of tolerance for scholars in a bitterly divided city. For 13 years, Fahmi has lined his shelves with works of history and literature, written by Arabs, Jews and scholars from around the world. Over that time, he has created what has been described as “the only decent English-language bookshop in the country”. “It’s the most enjoyable thing I have ever done in my life. It has been such a part of the life of Jerusalem,” he told the Observer . “I really did not fully appreciate how much until it was under
Continue reading …For years Munther Fahmi has been living in the city of his birth on a series of tourist visas after his permanent residency lapsed. Now the authorities have warned they may not issue any more On the edge of the busy forecourt of Jerusalem’s world-famous American Colony hotel, Munther Fahmi is in his usual spot; sitting in the bookshop that has become a haven of tolerance for scholars in a bitterly divided city. For 13 years, Fahmi has lined his shelves with works of history and literature, written by Arabs, Jews and scholars from around the world. Over that time, he has created what has been described as “the only decent English-language bookshop in the country”. “It’s the most enjoyable thing I have ever done in my life. It has been such a part of the life of Jerusalem,” he told the Observer . “I really did not fully appreciate how much until it was under
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You’ve probably heard Keren Ann’s haunting songs without knowing her name. But now, with the release of her ambitious sixth album, that’s about to change Keren Ann Zeidel sits at a long cafe table, huddled in a voluminous beige-brown cape, her eyes ringed with kohl. Her black hair is cut in an uncompromising pudding bowl and her skin is as pale as an oyster shell. She looks small and delicate, almost child-like, but when she starts talking about music, she launches fluently into extended semi-philosophical monologues on the nature of art, referencing everything from film noir to Chopin. The overall effect is somewhat incongruous, like a bush-baby delivering a university lecture. “My music is much easier to explain as a picture,” she says, midway through one such monologue. “All the arrangements, textures, all the colours and the way you mix them… It’s frequencies instead of pigments.” She laughs, semi-apologetic, and drinks her black coffee. “I know it sounds very
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Anthony Horowitz was 21 when his father died. A man of wealth, culture, and a shady business background, Mark Horowitz had been a mystery to his son – and the days after his funeral brought a dramatic revelation “When the doorbell rings at three in the morning, it’s never good news.” Those are the words that quite literally changed my life. I vividly remember writing them. I had published about 15 children’s books, but with only a limited amount of success, and was seriously thinking of giving them up altogether. My television career, working on shows such as Robin of Sherwood and Poirot , was in much better shape. Who needed children’s books anyway? (This was before Harry Potter .) But there had always been this one idea about a teenage spy that had been nudging at my consciousness, and one afternoon I sat down and wrote the first sentence of what was to be Stormbreaker , the opening novel in the Alex Rider series. Since then the books have sold about 12m copies in more than 30 languages, and the truth is that as I looked at that sentence, sitting in my studio in Crouch End, I knew that I had somehow unlocked something and that this would finally be the breakthrough I had been looking for. But actually the sentence is based on a far earlier memory, and it wasn’t a doorbell that rang at three o’clock, it was a telephone. I was 21 years old and living in the north London suburb of Stanmore. I knew at once what the phone call meant. It was the hospital ringing to tell us my father had died. He had been ill a few years before with a virulent and disabling form of cancer that had necessitated his first serious operation. My father, a fastidious and private man, never really came to terms with the medication, the medical apparatus and the dietary rules that now confronted him. And when the cancer returned, he never acknowledged it. The rule in our family was that you ignored illness, or at least downplayed it, and I often wonder if he might not have survived if he had only recognised what was wrong with him and gone back to the doctor sooner. Anyway, he’d had a second, major operation that had brought a spark of hope which had quickly faded and we all – which is to say my mother, brother, sister and I – knew that the end wasn’t far away. The phone rang. I woke up and as I
Continue reading …It’s an odd story: GoDaddy CEO decides he wants to shoot an elephant, videos his hunt, and then is surprised when animal rights activists drop their GoDaddy accounts. Don’t they know he is being a conservationist ? So maybe it wasn’t such a good idea for Big Bad Bob to videotape how he gets his African thrills? Maybe it was a bit much for people to take in the sight of him standing with an elephant he shot dead, grinning like a kid on Christmas? GoDaddy’s CEO Bob Parsons flies to Zimbabwe loaded for the biggest land animal on Earth. He hangs around the farming villages known to have trouble with bulls in must. They ask him to kill the troublemakers, he cranks up the video camera, and he pretends Jack the Ripper lives next door. The elephants come by and — bang! — he shoots one dead. Awesome. Then he posts the whole heroic episode online , and, oops. Well, wouldn’t you know? People like elephants. Bob doesn’t understand why anyone’s upset — didn’t you see all the villagers tearing the carcass to bits?“The people there have very little, many die each year from starvation and one of the problems they have is the elephants, of which there are thousands and thousands, that trash many of their fields destroying the crops. These people have literally nothing and when an elephant is killed it’s a big event for them, they are going to be able to eat some protein.”You thinking what I’m thinking? I’m thinking a smarter CEO would have thought a little about the consequences of starring in an animal bloodbath. I can’t lie, I don’t even begin to understand the appeal of big game hunting. It is horrifying to contemplate, but even more so to gloat on video over. I wasn’t a big fan of GoDaddy because of their sexist advertising, but this is horrible. Unsurprisingly, GoDaddy is losing clients over this unapologetic move (Parsons says he’s planning on doing more hunting soon). Clients like PETA and the Humane Society don’t find shooting endangered species something worth supporting. Vegansaurus outlines how disingenuous Parsons’ defense is : Unbelievable. From my calculations, the absolute BARE BONES MINIMUM you can spend on an elephant murdering murder tour of murder in Zimbabwe is $21,000 . Do you know how many f***ing hungry people you can feed with $21,000?! To give a comparison, Food fo Life Global can feed over 100 meals for $100 . That’s 2,100,000 meals for the price of his elephant killing safari. (UPDATE: My numbers were wrong, they can do 100 meals for $30, so it’s actually 69,930 meals. That’s still insanely more than one dead elephant can provide.) And that’s a low estimate that doesn’t include his plane ticket, taxes, fees, whatever the f*** else these rich murdering pieces of sh** pay to murder legally. He’s also saying that he’s helping thin the herd so that they don’t infringe on the resources of locals. OMG WHAT LOLZ. There are much more humane ways to do this , from contraception to electric fences. In fact, murdering elephants might have the exact opposite effect , as other ellies race to procreate. If you are a GoDaddy client and want to voice your discontent, here’s a slideshow on how to boycott GoDaddy .
Continue reading …How to keep your composure when a public reading goes south. Plus, why does everyone assume that women can only write about themselves? One of the unexpected consequences of publishing a
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Samuel Tomlinson to appear before magistrates on Monday charged with attempting to kill Chloe West An 18-year-old man has been charged with the attempted murder of a teenager who was stabbed near the gates of a secondary school in Stourbridge. West Midlands police said Samuel Tomlinson, from the Sedgley area, would appear before magistrates in Dudley on Monday charged with attempting to kill Chloe West and wounding one of the 14-year-old’s fellow pupils. Chloe, who suffered wounds to her upper body and face outside Ridgewood High School in Stourbridge on Friday, was discharged from Birmingham Children’s Hospital this afternoon after undergoing surgery. Crime guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Too many guests and too little space used to leave Tobias scratching his head, but that was before Morag of the Marsh came to the rescue We’ve got a chronic shortage of shelters here and have many more people wanting to come than we can accommodate. I
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Recording of YouTube sensation by singing binman and doctors’ cult hero MC NxtGen was funded by Unison His musical attack on Andrew Lansley’s plans for the NHS has become a viral sensation on the web. But the story behind the rise of Sean Donnelly, aka MC NxtGen, to the status of cult hero among the nation’s surgeons, doctors and nurses has remained something of a mystery. Now the Observer can reveal that the 22-year-old singer was given his helping hand by the health workers’ union, Unison. Donnelly and his girlfriend, an occupational therapist and member of the union, contacted officials with the idea three weeks ago. The union insists that the words to the track are those of Donnelly, who is a binman by day, but admit that they were so impressed by his lyrics that they funded the recording and a film clip. The result has capitalised on strong opposition to the government’s proposed reforms, with David Cameron expected to announce a delay this week in the publication of the health and social care bill until after local elections on 5 May. The prime minister is said to be increasingly worried about public opinion against change, demonstrated by the popularity of Donnelly’s rap. By yesterday, a week since his clip was posted on YouTube, it had received 200,000 hits. Donnelly, from Loughborough, has now been contacted by BBC3 to feature on a forthcoming programme, and Channel 4 has asked him to write a rap on the subject of the royal wedding. “It has been a hectic week,” said Donnelly. “I have got a few TV meetings lined up for next week – it’s good, really good. I did the rap first and then thought Unison might be able to back me up so I got my girlfriend to put it through to them and they really liked it and got me the place to film it. It took about a day and a half. I don’t think it cost much because Tom the video guy doesn’t charge much. “I did the lyrics myself, went on the internet, did some research and put it together like a jigsaw and made it funny. And it has just spread.” Filmed in Ash Field school, a special school for the physically disabled in Leicester, and eschewing the traditional hiphop themes of bling, booty and babes, Donnelly’s three-minute rap about the Department of Health’s white paper, Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS, is personally dedicated to the secretary of state for health. “Andrew Lansley, greedy, Andrew Lansley, tosser,” runs the rap, over a sample taken from the Animals’ House of the Rising Sun. “The NHS is not for sale, you grey-haired manky codger!” But if Donnelly is far from polite, he has certainly done his research. “So the budget of the PCTs, he wants to hand to the GPs/ Oh please. Dumb geeks are gonna buy from any willing provider,/ Get care from private companies.” Later, he adds: “We’ll become more like the US/ and care will be farmed out to private companies,/ who will sell their service to the NHS via the GPs/ who will have more to do with service purchase arrangements than anything to do with seeing their patients.” He is now trying to release the track on iTunes. Lansley was moved to comment. “We will never privatise the National Health Service,” he said. “But I’m impressed that he’s managed to get lyrics about GP commissioning into a rap .” Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, said: “We want to use every means to let people know about the damage it will cause to the NHS.” Andrew Lansley Rap Daniel Boffey guardian.co.uk
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Carmakers plan for parts shortage as global impact of earthquake and tsunami takes hold Honda could be forced to halt production at its car plant in Swindon next month as the repercussions of Japan’s devastating earthquake and tsunami reach British factories. At a crunch meeting this week, the Japanese carmaker will agree a plan on how to tackle the growing shortage of key components such as satnavs. Executives will discuss a range of options, including a temporary closure of the Swindon plant, which employs about 3,000 staff, or a period of reduced production. The plant makes about 165,000 Civics, CR-V compact SUVs, and Jazz superminis a year and is braced for a shortage of electronic, electrical and brake parts. Each car comprises about 20,000 parts, 10% to 15% of which come from Japan. A Honda spokesman said: “All scenarios are a possibility. There will be an impact, although it won’t be till May. We don’t yet know what to do to get around the issue, but a decision will be made some time this week.” Honda is by no means alone, with car manufacturers around the world expecting interruptions to production as component shortages spread worldwide. Toyota’s UK plants in Burnaston, near Derby, and in north Wales are to continue a ban on daily overtime and fortnightly Saturday shifts imposed around the middle of last month, while a Nissan spokesman said the group was “constantly monitoring the situation in the UK and all over its operations”. The shortage of parts in the UK is expected to become increasingly significant over the next month, since many components from Japan take six weeks to arrive. Paul Everitt, the chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), said: “The disruption in Japan will have an impact on the UK motor industry, but the scale and timing remain very uncertain.” Initially, carmakers had hoped that most component manufacturers in Japan would be up and running in time to ensure minimal interruptions to overseas supplies. However, in the past fortnight it has become increasingly apparent that the damage and power shortages in Japan will have an impact overseas. Professor ManMohan Sodhi, an expert in supply chain management at Cass Business School in London, said: “There has been an aftershock in car manufacturing that mirrors the aftershocks from an earthquake. They may be smaller, but they are still significant.” In Japan, the economic damage caused by the crisis is already evident. Sales of new vehicles plummeted by 37% in March, the biggest monthly decline since 1974. Although none of the major car manufacturers suffered serious damage to factories, most cannot return to full operation until at least mid-May. Toyota had to halt production at all 18 of its plants in Japan immediately after the earthquake, although two have since reopened to produce a limited number of Prius and two other hybrid models. Honda said it would resume making parts for export markets tomorrow, with production due to restart at all its Japanese factories seven days later – but only at half their original capacity. The firm has not said when manufacturing will return to normal. Nissan, which estimated that its production fell by 55,000 vehicles in March, said it would resume normal operations by mid-April at all but one of its assembly plants. The exception is a factory in Iwaki, north-east Japan, located just 50km from the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Honda Automotive industry Japan disaster Japan Tom Bawden Justin McCurry guardian.co.uk
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