As co-host of the current World Cup, Sri Lankans are relishing their moment on the sport’s biggest stage. And no wonder. For them, cricket is much more than a game. After years of civil war, the tsunami and floods, it’s still the only thing holding their chaotic country together The wicket is taller than the batsman. The wicket is a Colombo Municipal Council garbage bin that used to be green, but is now decorated with amber-white crow droppings. The bin is filled with plastic bags overflowing with uneaten curry. In front of it stands an eight-year old in a T-shirt eight sizes too large for him. The bin frames him as a doorway would an adult. If he leaves a ball whizzing past his shoulder, he will be out. The bat is a plank that’s been sawn into shape. It would reach the boy’s chin if it were upright. Now it is held at an awkward angle, like a mamoty ploughing a paddyfield. My eyes do not go to the two ruffians in mosque hats crowding around the bat; nor to the pig-tailed girl behind the wicket, playing with the stray dog; nor to the tattered high rises, the ragged palm trees or the unkempt military checkpoint down the road. I
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The ‘nose to tail’ chef is ready to open the St John hotel, an ‘oasis of calm’ with 2am dining and Toblerone in the minibar Try Fergus Henderson’s recipes from the St John Hotel menu When is a hotel not a hotel? When it’s built by a pair of restaurateurs who have made their name preaching the joys of offal, the glory of chitterlings, the meaty delights of pig cheeks and lambs’ brains. Possibly. When the dining room stays open until 2am. When the bar never shuts. When there’s Fernet-Branca and Poire William in the minibar, and when the bedrooms come with green rubber floors “because it’ll be like sleeping in a pond – very calming”. Oh yes, there’s not much that’s hotel-like about Fergus Henderson’s and Trevor Gulliver’s new venture . Apart from the fact that it is actually a hotel where you can actually stay, although with just 15 rooms, above what promises to be a world-class restaurant, just one step away from Leicester Square, with the £5.5m cost funded by investors that include art world luminaries such as Tracey Emin, Sadie Cole, Sarah Lucas and Peter Doig, you may have to form an orderly queue. What marks out the St John Hotel is that it’s not saddled with the usual hotel logic. Gulliver calls it a “hostelry” and Henderson says that “the spirit of the place is ‘yes’.” And it’s already a part of London history, housed in Manzi’s, the fish restaurant on the fringes of Chinatown that had been there forever, until suddenly it wasn’t. Begun in 2007, and arriving a respectable six months behind schedule, it’s the latest adventure for the pair, who nearly two decades ago opened St John, the bare bones restaurant next to London’s Smithfield meat market, founded on the concept of “nose-to-tail” eating. If you’re going to eat meat, Fergus Henderson has always said, it’s only polite to eat the whole animal. The new concept is table-to-bed. “Like Isambard Kingdom Brunel,” he says. “He built the Great Western Railway then arrived in Bristol and saw the Atlantic and thought ‘A ha! I’ll cross that next’ and built the SS Great Britain.” Here, Henderson explains how it happened: Fergus Henderson: “It all started in Beirut. I went to the wedding of a friend there, and he said, come and do something here in Beirut. It was based in a palace which had been a hotel and I rather saw myself in a white dinner jacket like Humphrey Bogart in Rick’s Cafe: just smoking and watching the scene. That fell through but the seed had been sown and then Trevor spotted that Manzi’s was empty. Now Manzi’s has been a feature in my life since the word go, almost. I remember going there the night I had my wisdom teeth out: I had oysters and lobster soup because I couldn’t chew anything. “It was a real institution, and it always had a little hotel above. In the 80s if you worked in advertising and the boss asked you to Manzi’s for lunch, you sort of knew that your afternoon was destined to end upstairs. It needed a new start so we gutted the whole building, there were just two walls left, and it’s been fun watching it take shape. It’s looking really cheeky. We’ve got some colour, which is an adventure for me, but I have to say I think it’s worked very well. “It will be cheeky in a nice way. Cheeky could be saucy, which a hotel should be, but not too saucy, because if you’re alone it could be rather sad. There’s no art on the wall and there are no wooden ducks. Because you’re only there for a few days, why would you need a wooden duck? Or a bedspread where you wonder how many people have put their naked bottoms on it. Our idea which we’ve followed quite closely is Miniature Grand Urban Hut. Because if you go to a grand hotel and you get into any kind of trouble, you know they’ll sort it out and it’ll be OK. And a hut because in the mountains you go into this marvellous space and it saves you from the elements. “The bathrooms are in the rooms because otherwise, in small hotels, you have those weird cubicles which cut into the room. And also you can’t watch the telly in the bath. There’s a separate room for the toilet, though. “There aren’t going to be pig trotters in the minibar, no, no, no. But there will be carefully selected spirits with nips to cheer you up like Poire William and Fernet-Branca. And Toblerone. Of course. It hurts your mouth as you bite in, and reminds you that everything’s not perfect. Which is good because sometimes you can feel a bit too smug in a hotel. “The restaurant will be open till two in the morning. No one else is, which is a good thing. There could be a reason, of course, why restaurants aren’t open till two. Oh well. We may have to work that one out. And the residents’ bar, well, there’s no reason it should ever shut. It is the hotel of my dreams, basically. There’s no point in doing it otherwise. “We’re hoping the clientele will include chefs after work, and the drummer from some orchestra or other. The place has a foodie vibration so hopefully that will put off the people looking for a fast food burger. But then again, everyone’s welcome. I started off working in dodgy members clubs. And I hated that. People not being allowed in. What we do is open our doors and see who comes in. “The menu is going to be like the hotel, a little oasis of calm, a brow-stroke, you know: good food, good wine, all is well. There’s a GK Chesterton book where a character goes, “Landlord! Some beans and bacon and a bottle of your finest Burgundy!” I like that idea, that you could walk in and say that. And there’ll be lots of buns, of course, perfect for dunking in coffee. “A kitchen is very like an 18th-century man o’ war, I think. It’s like Master and Commander . I’m not sure what book expresses the hotel, although I do like Hotel Splendide by Ludwig Bemelmans. He tells the story of a wedding in the main ballroom where these dwarves come out of the cake and then row it across a lake. Which is a million miles from anything we could achieve, but I quite like his ambition. Gosh, yes.” OFM St John Hotel, 1 Leicester St, London WC2H 7BL, opens on 31 March; rooms from £200 pn; 020 3301 8069; stjohnhotellondon.com Fergus Henderson Chefs Food & drink Hotels London Carole Cadwalladr guardian.co.uk
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As rescuers fight their way through to the victims, workers struggle to contain radioactive leaks from a nuclear power plant The full horror of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan is starting to emerge amid fears that the death toll could run into many thousands. A day of high tension saw workers battle to save a nuclear plant from meltdown and 50,000 rescuers fight their way to victims in the midst of mud, flood waters, collapsed buildings and continuing blazes. At least 1,700 people were reported dead or missing following the earthquake and tsunami, Kyodo news agency said. Further shocks of up to 6.4 magnitude continued to strike the north-east a day and a half after the major quake. In addition, Kyodo said, 9,500 people could not be contacted in Minami Sanriku in the northern prefecture of Miyagi, around half the population. Japanese broadcaster NHK said 2,700 homes had been destroyed in Arahama, in the same prefecture. Further north, the National Police Agency said 5,000 homes were under water in Rikuzen-Takata, Iwate prefecture. Survivors were reported to be clambering over uprooted trees and overturned cars to reach homes. Rail operators were also searching for four commuter trains that were travelling coastal lines in Miyagi and Iwate when the tsunami struck. The frantic search for survivors was almost overshadowed by the spectre of radioactive leaks at a nuclear power plant at the heart of the area most affected by Friday’s earthquake. At the Fukushima plant, radiation leaked from a damaged reactor after an explosion blew the roof off. Japan’s nuclear safety agency said the accident was rated less serious than the Three Mile Island or Chernobyl disasters, but up to 160 people were exposed to radiation. Authorities told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s atomic watchdog, they were making preparations to distribute iodine to people living nearby. Iodine can increase resistance against thyroid cancer in the case of radioactive exposure. A 20km evacuation zone was imposed around the plant as authorities moved tens of thousands of residents from the area, some 240km north of Tokyo, as they tried to reduce pressure in the reactors. The IAEA said Japanese authorities had informed it of the explosion and that they were “assessing the condition of the reactor core”. Early this morning, technicians were battling to relieve pressure in a second reactor at the plant after its cooling system failed. The procedure was expected to release a small amount of radiation. As the first wave of military rescuers began arriving, prime minister Naoto Kan said 50,000 troops had joined rescue and recovery efforts, aided by boats and helicopters. Dozens of countries also offered help; Britain sent a specialist team of search and rescue experts. Andrew Mitchell, the international development secretary, said: “Our thoughts are with the people of Japan as
Continue reading …O’Reilly thinks it’s ‘insane’ to see the radical right as a serious domestic-terrorism problem
March 12, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Bill O’Reilly has been sneering all week at the notion that the threat of terrorism from the American radical right is, in terms of domestic terrorism, of greater significance than that from homegrown Islamic radicals — even after the most recent case of domestic terrorism to hit the news this week involved the arrest of a neo-Nazi for the attempted Martin Luther King Day parade bombing in Spokane. Of course, O’Reilly is in deep denial about this reality, as is Rep. Peter King, whose “Muslim radicalization” hearings have been the talk of Fox all week. Indeed, when Geraldo Rivera pointed it out to O’Reilly on his Fox show Friday, O’Reilly acted as though it was the first he’d heard of the matter. That’s some knowledgeable insight on domestic terrorism, eh? RIVERA: He’s got a point. You know, I understand his point. His larger point, which I totally endorse, is that it is unfair, as you mention in your lead-in, to single out this one group. O’REILLY: OK. Now, I didn’t say it was unfair. I said some people, like you, crazy left wingers, think it is. (CROSSTALK) RIVERA: Can I tell — it’s not 126. That’s Eric Holder’s number of the people prosecuted for terrorism. But your audience has to know that of the 126, we’re talking about 50 American citizens. The vast majority of the 50 American citizens are like the knuckleheads from Newberg, entrapped into doing terror with co-conspirators who are really FBI agents leading them down the primrose path. O’REILLY: If you look — if you look at the totality of the problem, in the world, not the United States, it is Muslim-jihad generated. Congressman Green has the nerve to foist upon the American public that the KKK should be equally looked at when the KKK hasn’t had any — any kind of impact on this country for decades. So you’re saying to yourself… RIVERA: I don’t think so that’s true. I think the KKK — O’REILLY: Do you think the KKK has any influence in this country right now? RIVERA: Let me — let me tell you and your audience that January 17, the last act of attempted terror in the United States, that was a neo-Nazi, that guy in Spokane, Washington, who planted a weapon of mass destruction on the route of the Martin Luther King Day parade march. And that was terrorism. This was a neo-Nazi. And why wouldn’t a hearing on domestic terror include a heinous act like that? O’REILLY: Was he associated with a group? RIVERA: Yes. He was a neo-Nazi, I forget — which — which of the… O’REILLY: According to the Spokane police, he was a lone crazy nut. RIVERA: That’s not true. He is definitely a neo-Nazi. The National Alliance. I have a note. The National Alliance. O’REILLY: The National Alliance. Look, I’m not opposed to having hearings about these people, but to raise… RIVERA: Peter King is a great guy. O’REILLY: … them to the equivalency of the jihad is insane. Wanna know what’s insane? The fact that we have 23 identifiable instances of serious right-wing domestic terrorism of the past two and a half years, and guys like O’Reilly can just whitewash it away: Know what else is insane? That guys like O’Reilly can keep citing utterly discredited misinformation such as Frank Gaffney’s utterly nonsensical claim that “85 percent of mosques” in America are radicalized — and can simply get away with it — because they’re too big to care. Yep, there’s plenty of “insane” to go around on Fox.
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On Thursday's Newsroom, CNN's Ali Velshi claimed that Rep. Peter King has a ” seemingly strange obsession with Islam and Islamists, or whatever you want to call it ,” given the lead up and the first day of hearings looking into the radicalization of American Muslims. Velshi also bizarrely stated that ” I don't quite understand how when you put an -ist at the end of it [Islamism], it changes the subject .” The anchor discussed the hearings with former FBI agent Foria Younis, CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen, and former Catholic turned Episcopal priest Rev. Alberto Cutie during the last segment of the 2 pm Eastern hour. Midway through the panel discussion, Velshi turned to Cutie and made his claim about the New York congressman, along with his doubt about the validity of “Islamist” as a term: VELSHI: Let's put aside Peter King's seemingly strange obsession with Islam and Islamists, or whatever you want to call it. I don't quite understand how when you put an -ist at the end of it, it changes the subject. But let's just say, putting that aside, should Muslims be looking more carefully at themselves? Is there something that law-abiding American Muslims should be doing simply- to be doing to satisfy this call to action that Peter King has put out? Perhaps he doesn't understand that Islamist is a synonym for a radical Muslim, and that the term, in its current usage, has been around for decades, and has its origin in French academia . As you might expect, Cutie spouted the liberal talking point about not singling out one community and the need to examine extremism outside the Muslim population: CUTIE: Well, listen, in my conversations with the ecumenical community, with rabbis, with imams, with pastors, and then priests, everybody agrees that the big problem for some people is that Muslims have not come out in thousands and thousands of numbers marching down the street, maybe in New York City or other places, and saying, we are against terrorism. This is what some people need and want. I'm not sure that that's going to do anything. I think that the sheriff said it right. My concern is the radicalization of people in all faith groups. I think we have to be very careful when we single out one group. Certainly, when are you in charge of Homeland Security, you are worried about terrorism. We're all worried about terrorism. But how are we going to end this stigma of Muslim equals terrorist? Earlier, the CNN anchor asked Younis, “Are Muslims in America and mosques and imams, are they reluctant and not cooperative with the U.S. government, when it comes to ferreting out radicals and terrorists?” The ex-law enforcement officer contended that ” over the last ten years, many, many more Muslims are communicating with law enforcement, and I think that's really in part due to a lot of the law enforcement activity in trying to bring all members of the community into their fold, so that they can all work together to deal with any issues in the community .” Bergen reenforced Younis's point and disputed one of Rep. King's points about the Muslim community: BERGEN: One of the principal claims that he's made in the run-up to this hearing is that the American Muslim community isn't cooperating with law enforcement, and, in fact, that is simply a false assertion . The New America Foundation, where I work, and also, Syracuse University, has just released a study, which is on CNN's website, and we looked at 175 jihadi terrorism cases since 9/11. We found, using a conservative methodology, that one in five of those cases had originated because of a tip of the Muslim community, all because of the cooperation of a family member turning in someone they thought was becoming increasingly militant or radical. So, just one of the principal, kind of underlying ideas of this hearing is just factually incorrect. Whether the American Muslim community is actually cooperative is actually debatable, as the New York Daily News (which is no conservative publication) reported on Tuesday that ” cops and federal agents agree with Rep. Pete King that they don't get a lot of tipsters from the Muslim community – but they say that's true of many other communities.” Velshi followed up with Younis on this subject later in the segment: “If you are trying to gain the cooperation or greater cooperation of an identifiable group, like Muslims in America, is this a good step in the right direction, or are there more effective ways for law enforcement to do this?” The former FBI agent sided with those on the left who claim that the hearings may actually end up causing further radicalization in the Islamic community: YOUNIS: …The fact of the matter is, Ali, there may be some radicalization issues out there. They may be very minor. They may be larger than we think. But these type of hearings, all they produce is alienation even further . I think there's proper ways to do this. There's proper ways to collect this information. Peter Bergen just quoted some of his research and his statistics. Those are the ways to do it. By producing a hearing like this, you are actually doing probably more harm than good, and that is pushing people from communities further away, because they feel they are being judged as a whole … if there is any radicalization in the community, which I believe there may be minor pockets , what we need to do as a larger community is work with these parents, work with these community leaders and try to identify these issues with the assistance of the community, not pushing them up against the wall where you almost are going to have a counter-effect. In his last question to Bergen, the CNN anchor asked, ” Aside from the fact we're discovering that American Islam seems to need a better PR effort, is there some degree of apologism going on for Islam in America in this debate? Do Muslims need to come out and say, maybe there is a greater instance of radicalization or extremism in the community, or is it not the responsibility of American Muslims to do that?” The analyst took a more balanced approach than he did earlier in his answer: BERGEN: There is a problem. I mean, to pretend that there isn't would be equally wrong to say as, you know, to say that the sky is falling. You know, certainly, there's been an uptick in cases in 2009 and 2010, and the Muslim American community is well aware of that. At the end of the day, if there is an attack, they're going to suffer the most. So, they have the highest possible motivation to make sure that, if there are militants in their midst, to basically raise their hands, and they're doing that. — Matthew Balan is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here .
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50 years ago, Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. But the unsung hero of the Soviet Union’s triumph was a brilliant scientist who survived Stalin’s purges It remains the one untarnished triumph of Soviet science. On 12 April 1961, a peasant farmer’s son with a winsome smile crammed himself into a capsule eight feet in diameter and was blasted into space on top of a rocket 20 storeys high. One hundred and eight minutes later, after making a single orbit of our world, the young pilot parachuted back to Earth. In doing so, Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to journey into space. The flight of Vostok 1 – whose 50th anniversary will be celebrated next month – was a defining moment of the 20th century and opened up the prospect of interplanetary travel for our species. It also made Gagarin an international star while his mission was hailed as clear proof of the superiority of communist technology. The 27-year-old cosmonaut became a figurehead for the Soviet Union and toured the world. He lunched with the Queen; was kissed by Gina Lollobrigida; and holidayed with the privileged in Crimea. Gagarin also received more than a million letters from fans across the world, an astonishing outpouring of global admiration – for he was not obvious star material. He was short and slightly built. Yet Gagarin possessed a smile “that lit up the darkness of the cold war”, as one writer put it, and had a natural grace that made him the best ambassador that the USSR ever had. Even his flaws seem oddly endearing by modern standards, his worst moment occurring when he gashed his head after leaping from a window to avoid his wife who had discovered a girl in his hotel room. To many Russians, Gagarin occupies the same emotional territory as John
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Click here to view this media While discussing whether Wisconsin’s Governor Scott Walker is actually going to be willing to make a deal with the fourteen Democrats who fled the state or not and the rights of the public workers in Wisconsin to collective bargaining on Morning Joe, MSNBC’s resident racist and union hater Pat Buchanan lets everyone know why Republicans really hate unions. They organize to help get Democrats elected. And in Buchanan’s world, if you’re being paid a government salary from the taxpayers and you do that, it’s really, really evil and nefarious. Of course we never hear Pat complaining about corporate lobbyists influencing politicians — because that’s just freedom of speech don’t you know. I’d like for someone to ask Pat if it’s okay for corporations like private military contractors who are getting no bid contracts from their buddies in Washington paid for by our tax dollars to pay lobbyists or meet with politicians themselves to get a share of our tax dollars. I wonder if Pat is going to complain if the Koch brothers end up getting to buy the public utilities in Wisconsin for some ridiculously low price that rips off the tax payers there. Anyone think we’re going to hear him start carping about that? Nope. Pat only cares if the taxpayers aren’t happy that those evil union thugs are using money to… gasp… earn a living and collectively bargain for fair wages and decent working conditions. And worse yet… pull out the smelling salts… to support politicians who might have their best interests at heart. People who work for the government that belong to unions are not spending taxpayer money to support their unions. They’re paying part of their salaries. That money doesn’t belong to the taxpayers any more than a private sector union member’s salary belongs to the company they work for after they’re paid. And they’ve got a right to expect to earn a living wage just like anyone else in America. But the Buchanan’s of the world want to paint that as somehow being evil and misusing taxpayer dollars. I’ve been at my job and in a union for over 25 years now and I’ve got a lot of conservative co-workers like anyone else out there obviously. I tell you this latest overreach by Walker and the teabaggers, the Republican Party and their cohorts in the media like Buchanan here is turning off people like I’ve never seen before. I’ve seen first hand conservative co-workers of mine looking at this stuff and just being completely disgusted and waking up for the first time to the fact that the Republican Party just hates working people and wants to destroy unions. I really think these Republican governors and their strategy to go full bore and try to give unions a fatal blow may end up being one of the biggest political blunders I’ve seen in my lifetime if the reaction from the people I work with is any indication. So you go Pat. You’re turning off Republican union members around the country and anyone that relates to or sides with them with your union bashing, just like your buddies in office.
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Dior designer’s indiscretion may have hit the big names, but the minnows see a silver lining It was the most spectacular and scandalous Paris fashion week in years, and many of the big names – not least John Galliano – were left counting the cost. However, for many designers less well-known outside the rarefied world of fashion, sensational headlines brought a potentially profitable silver lining. One such was Haider Ackermann, an independent designer who has been described by some fashionistas as “the new Yves Saint Laurent” and is being tipped for the top job at Dior. “It was a very bizarre fashion week, but a very good one for us,” said Katou Brandsma, who represents Ackermann. “Everyone was congratulating us. We had buyers from shops, like Barneys in New York, we’ve been waiting for 10 years to turn up to our shows. Our designs stood out because everyone else – apart from McQueen – was so boring.” Among the other designers to reap the rewards of the unusually scrutinised fashion week was the Italian-Japanese designer Nicola Formichetti, who counts Lady Gaga among her fans and was widely congratulated for her debut collection for Thierry Mugler. Following unconfirmed reports that she had been chosen to design Kate Middleton’s wedding dress, British creator Sarah Burton’s collection for the label of the late Alexander McQueen also drew plaudits. Some observers had feared that the aftermath of Galliano’s dramatic firing from Dior – for allegedly making antisemitic comments in a drunken rantin a Paris bar – would result in a fashion week dominated by scandal rather than sartorial fireworks. Their worries were not soothed by the hullabaloo greeting Kate Moss’s appearance on the catwalk smoking a cigarette. One writer at the event, who declined to be named, said his editor demanded: “Give us a good story about fashion week, but don’t bother about the clothes.” For the unluckiest on the French capital’s fashion circuit, the controversy did indeed spell disaster: Brussels-born designer Anthony Vaccarello’s show was scheduled for the first day of the week – the same day, it transpired, that Galliano was fired. Vaccarello, remarked the New York Times , had a “fine presentation whose fate it was to be forgotten instantly”. Others, however, remain convinced that a good dose of publicity never did any harm. Dana Thomas, a Paris-based fashion writer and author of Deluxe: How Luxury Lost its Lustre , said the fall-out from l’affaire Galliano and the subsequent rumours of musical chairs at the big-name fashion houses had produced a “win-win situation”. “The intrigue, bar-room brawls and court proceedings brought a new dynamic and will have created renewed interest in fashion,” she said. “The scandals gave the whole business a shot of adrenaline, including for the business side. It wasn’t bad news for the French fashion industry at all.” Neither, she added, was good fortune reserved for the designers: writers were also rejoicing at having something new to report on. “It allowed fashion writers to get back to what they used to do, being proper journalists writing about fashion news rather than giving a critique of clothes as though they were talking about movies and art,” Thomas said. “It had become so boring writing about clothes, which can be pretty and interesting but not the most intellectual pursuit ever known. I mean, at the end of the day a pencil skirt is just a pencil skirt.” For the success stories of the week, celebrations have been tempered by an awareness of how high the stakes are. Ever since Galliano bowed out, Paris has been awash with speculation over who might replace him. Ackermann, for one, was under enormous pressure, said Brandsma, his representative. The Colombian-born Frenchman’s star rose sharply last year when Chanel’s Karl Lagerfeld picked him as his favoured successor. “I have a contract for life, so it all depends on who I would hand it to. At the moment, I’d say Haider Ackermann,” he told Numéro magazine. When his phone started ringing non-stop on 1 March, the designer dealt with it in his own way. “When everything went mad, he locked himself in his showroom and turned off his BlackBerry,” said Brandsma. “I believe it’s still off now.” Paris fashion week John Galliano Kate Moss Fashion Kim Willsher guardian.co.uk
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Four-day weekend to celebrate marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton taken as chance to escape for early summer sun When David Cameron gave the nation an extra day off in honour of the wedding of a prince, he may not have reckoned on the impact. Far from pinning up some bunting or jostling for elbow room around the biggest flatscreen in the village on 29 April, many British people plan to leave the country and abandon the spectacle to the tourists. Bookings for foreign breaks have shot up, while online holiday companies are reporting that the number of people searching for April getaways is double last year’s. Travel agents are reporting from 30% to 56% rises in interest in their holidays, while Hotels.com says that the number of people searching for holidays for the week ending 29 April has increased by 212% compared with the same time in 2010. Thomas Cook has put an extra 100,000 sunshine breaks on sale to meet demand, a third more than usual, while Ryanair has reported a 65% increase in bookings. “It’s a bonanza for the foreign travel industry, which I’m sure the prime minister wasn’t expecting,” said Lonely Planet’s Tom Hall, who has been inundated with readers looking for advice on the best destinations. “And it’s an absolutely lovely time to be in the Caribbean.” Hall added: “There is a huge degree of interest making the most of the extra time that’s being offered. As pretty much anyone who works will back up, an opportunity like that is not to be missed. And, of course, hoteliers in this country are facing an influx of tourists coming into London for the wedding, so it’s a good time to leave town.” The extra day off on Friday, 29 April, means that millions of workers will enjoy two successive four-day weekends in quick succession: 22-25 April, taking in bank holidays on Good Friday and Easter Monday, and 29 April–2 May, taking in the royal wedding and the May Day bank holiday, with only a three-day working week in between. “Holidaymakers now only need to take five days’ annual leave to benefit from a 14-night holiday,” said Richard Calvert, managing director of Thomas Cook holidays, welcoming it as “great news for savvy travellers”. So far, the most popular destinations are places with plenty of early summer sunshine, such as Turkey, Egypt and the Canaries. European republics are also popular, especially with independent travellers. The travel firm Skyscanner said that Germany was the top destination for escapes over the 29 April weekend. For those keen to avoid the wedding but not able to leave these shores, an alternative event has been set up by a Welsh cultural group: the Escape The Wedding Camp at a campsite near Machynlleth. Balchder Cymru (Pride of Wales), a group set up to promote Welsh consciousness, is considering staging a march through Machynlleth on the day to celebrate the area’s links with their preferred Prince of Wales, Owain Glyndwr, who was crowned in the town in 1404. “We are giving people an opportunity to escape the razzledazzle and media hype that will take place when the wedding takes place. Not everyone will be celebrating,” said a spokesman for the group. On Oxford Street yesterday, a shop owner who didn’t want to be named admitted that there was little interest in Kate/Wills memorabilia. “Postcards are doing OK, but it’s a lot of Brits writing jokey, bitchy messages.” Tourists were buying union-jack-emblazoned products for their kitsch appeal. Paula Hilton, 26, from Lancaster, in London with her mother Elizabeth, 56, for the weekend, was buying her son a model of a London taxi. “I wouldn’t come near London on the day,” she said. “I’ll have a look at the dress in the paper or whatever, but I’m not invited so I’m not watching!” Many Londoners, meanwhile, are hoping to cash in on outsiders’ enthusiasm. The city’s hotels are racking up prices to take advantage of a possible 500,000 foreign visitors, while the websites Gumtree and London Rent My House have huge numbers of people offering to rent out their homes – while they, presumably, seize the opportunity to take a holiday. The writer Anthony Holden is one of those who have opted to join the anti-monarchist exodus: “I am certainly planning to flee the country, due to my republicanism, general hatred of the news coverage and the fact that because of Easter weekend it’s like the dead week between Christmas and New Year. I shall go somewhere to the sun and work on my new book,” he said. The campaign group Republic is hosting one of several “anti-royal wedding” street parties. Its spokesman, Graham Smith, said he’d expect a few hundred people at the London event. “We expect the majority in the middle who are largely apathetic to just go on holiday to ignore it that way, and I hope they have a good time. At least 20% of the population are opposed to the monarchy, and many more simply don’t care about it.” Polls and complaints to the BBC about coverage before the event showed an unexcited nation, he said, adding: “The public holiday blows a hole in the idea that the wedding will be an economic boost for Britain. The CBI has calculated an extra day off would cost the economy
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Secondary schools in England and Wales focus on brighter children and fail to help teenagers prepare for world of work, warns Demos Half of all teenagers in England and Wales are being failed by secondary schools that focus on brighter children destined to go on to higher education, according to a damning new report from the thinktank Demos. The report, The Forgotten Half , claims that secondary schools routinely neglect pupils with vocational aspirations, offering minimal careers advice and little help in finding the type of jobs that would suit them. “Our schools are teaching just half of the population,” said one of the report’s authors, Jonathan Birdwell. “The education system needs to be less focused on pushing young people through the hoops of assessment that lead on to higher education, and more on equipping them with the skills to enter and progress through the labour market,” he added. One of the key findings of the research is that many of the vocational qualifications that children are encouraged to aim for turn out to be worthless. “That was one thing that really shocked me,” said Birdwell. Work-related learning was found to be low quality and young people failed to benefit from compulsory work experience due to poor links with local businesses and a failure to relate work experience to lessons given in the classroom. Schools were also found to undervalue the importance of part-time work, after-school clubs and volunteering in building up young people’s skills, experience and their CVs. The lack of preparation, the report claims, is an important contributory factor to rising youth unemployment in the UK and the emergence of the Neet – the 16- to 18-year-old who is not in education, employment or training. The recommendations of the report include requiring Ofsted to make careers advice and employer engagement into key components of assessing schools and colleges; to improve the work-experience opportunity; and to actively discourage young people from studying NVQ at levels 1 and 2 or taking up other low-level vocational qualifications that have little labour market value and lead to low wages. “[This report] really brings you up short,” said Shaks Ghosh, chief executive of the Private Equity Foundation (PEF), a venture philanthropy fund that works to support disadvantaged children and empowers young people to reach their full potential. [It's shocking] even for people like me who have worked in the charity sector all our lives and are used to sections of the community being disadvantaged. Failing half of young people? That’s a bit scary.” The foundation is particularly concerned with the Neet phenomenon, said Ghosh. “In July, a whole generation of school-leavers are coming out into unemployment, and they face a real possibility of remaining jobless. They are heading for the scrapheap. “The chances of a graduate becoming unemployed are something like 10%, but if you leave school without any qualifications or if your qualifications are just an NVQ 1 or 2 or something else that is more than worthless, then your chances of being unemployed are 30%.” She said mentoring schemes were now commonplace in European countries and were essential, and so too were business partnerships with schools. This month Demos warned of a boom in Neets as research found that the numbers could reach 1.2 million by 2015. In England, 8% of children leave primary school with very low levels of literacy and/or numeracy. The percentage of young people reaching expected levels for writing at 11, having risen from 54% in 1999 to 67% in 2006, has levelled off at 67% between 2006 and 2009. At secondary school, only 57% of young people achieved five A*–C grades in maths at GCSE and only 27% of young people on free school meals achieved five A*–C grades including maths and English. Schools Demos Vocational education Tracy McVeigh guardian.co.uk
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