Новости за 24.06.2015

Athletics coach Alberto Salazar has posted a lengthy open letter online addressing the accusations of doping and performance-enhancing drug use amongst his athletes.

Four horsemen are stalking Europe: the Greek financial crisis; illegal migration in the Mediterranean; Russian aggression; and Britain's reform-or-Brexit threat. Any of these could dominate the EU summit agenda: each could alter the fundamental character of the Union.

You haven’t bought Grey, the new Fifty Shades sequel by EL James? Obviously you haven’t. Nor have your friends. And even if any of you have, no one will admit it. In polite society, a woman who wishes to be well thought of can admit that she read the first chapter of the first book, but only if she then goes on to say that she threw it away because:

Almost unnoticed, David Cameron has become the giant-killer of British politics. He has consigned a whole generation of political leaders to the wilderness – Kenneth Clarke, David Davis and Malcolm Rifkind in 2005, Gordon Brown in 2010, Ed Miliband and Ed Balls and the Labour Party in 2015, together with Nick Clegg, Vince Cable, David Laws, Simon Hughes and almost every other Liberal Democrat MP.

She’s probably not purring today. If indeed she did ever “purr” down the telephone line to her Prime Minister about the fact that Scotland did not vote to break away. Now we learn that her favourite holiday destination is being jolly ungrateful, by threatening to pull out of the arduous task of paying for it.

In a career of many interviews and lunches, I can still remember the time I first met Zac Goldsmith. It was at an Italian café on the King’s Road, near Chelsea’s football ground. He sat outside so he could smoke. In that languid manner of his, he picked at a salad, rolled his own cigarettes, and shared his concerns about climate change.

Banish grease and add texture to your locks with one of these lifesavers

Banish grease and add texture to your locks with one of these lifesavers

The story of La traviata could hardly be simpler, yet, as evidenced by the false trails in Peter Konwitschny’s wayward production for ENO, it’s still possible to get things profoundly wrong.

The common myth is by the time you hit your forties, your sex life will be non-existent. I’m happily married with three children, two of whom are teenagers, but I’m having better sex now, at 47, than when I was in my twenties. At the age of 20 I was clueless about sex, men and my body. Now, I’m a mature woman who loves sex and knows what I want.

The temporary jetty at Greenwich peninsula, where last year The Boy Who Climbed out of his Face was staged, now hosts a production by new theatre company Zebedee, set in a purpose-built, rundown hotel where audiences are invited to join the "therapeutic" A.C.H.E programme.

We are being watched, all of the time. Everywhere you go, cameras are waiting to catch the unchecked stupidity, the embarrassing stumble, the drunken babble. One moment of thoughtlessness can be recorded and instantly shared with hoards of salivating and sanctimonious voyeurs across the world, before being logged and indelibly inscribed on our history. But rather than some form of 1984-style government surveillance scheme come good, the watchers are… us.

1. A couple of posts on Independent Voices yesterday provoked the “anti-austerity” online crowd, the closest thing we English have to cybernats.

Sir Chris Woodhead, who died on Tuesday after living with motor neurone disease for nearly a decade, was a divisive figure within the educational establishment. His tenure as Chief Inspector of Schools in England and Wales may best be remembered for his claim that 15,000 incompetent teachers should be weeded out.

The British Medical Association is one of the most effective trade unions in existence. It might prefer to think of itself as a professional body rather than a union, and its chairman, Dr Mark Porter, does not look or sound like Len McCluskey, but it fights for its members with the same single-mindedness of any obstinate shop steward.

Gabriel Prokofiev is pondering, over a Turkish lunch near his Bethnal Green studio in London, an unexpected development in his career as composer: the BBC has just picked a movement from his Concerto for Turntables and Orchestra for its new Ten Pieces list for schoolchildren aged 11 to 14. This concerto's mingling of classical format and very contemporary idiom – the scratching and sampling of a DJ on turntables – should be an ideal way in to the sometimes mysterious spheres of contemporary classical music. Читать дальше...

The pressure on Alberto Salazar to break his silence over doping allegations has mounted after another former employee questioned the legality of the American’s methods.

Witness the White House begging on its knees. Please, please, please give me fast-track authority so I can tie up my huge and legacy-making new free-trade deal with Asia and the Pacific. Response from Congress so far: not sure. Response from most Democrats: go jump in the lake.