Новости за 21.08.2015

Half of Britain’s young people do not think of themselves as ‘100 per cent heterosexual’, a YouGov survey revealed this week.

After plans to move one of the most famous lines ever written for the stage to the opening moments were abandoned, many in the theatre world have wondered what all the fuss is about.

It’s the dirty secret of the American criminal justice system: while it is the right of every citizen to be tried by a jury of their peers, that is rarely what actually happens.

“The great question,” mused Sigmund Freud in 1925 to one of his star disciples, “which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my 30 years of research into the feminine soul, is ‘What does a woman want?’”. He flung that much-derided query at Princess Marie Bonaparte, aka Princess George of Greece and Denmark. Quite apart from her trail-blazing achievements as a psychoanalyst, Princess Marie was also the protector and landlady in 1920s Paris of her husband’s nephew and his family, exiled from Greece. Читать дальше...

The rules for cancellations, overbooking and flight delays are tangled. This guide should make you aware of your entitlements, even if the airline fails to do so

During December 2013, a young Mauritanian blogger called Mohamed Cheikh Ould Mkhaitir wrote a blog where he defended the rights of his people in Mauritania, who are used and exploited based on their history when they were slaves.

This summer I took an important decision – to go on holiday by train. Life’s too short to shuffle forward in airport security, decant toiletries into tiny plastic bags, sit for hours in an airless lounge staring at tarmac.

Of the secular mysteries to which I wake with fresh and sometimes angry amazement every day, the queue is the second-most baffling. The first is the fan. Not the fan in the Lady Windermere sense. I mean the fan who is an abbreviation of fanatic, that self-abasing follower of a person or a thing whose ardour could in fact do with some of what fans of the other sort provide.

There are few things on earth less interesting than someone giving you a full rundown on their daily commute. Gridlock on the M5, was it? Had to take the Overground train, did you? The Number 9 bus drove straight past you even though you clearly had your arm out? Excuse me while I give this wall two coats of Magnolia Dulux and watch until it’s dry.

I was interested to read this week that period and tampon jokes have made a re-appearance on the Edinburgh Fringe after several years’ absence. It was when I remarked some years ago about the number of women on the Fringe telling these jokes that Time Out magazine delivered the priceless (and unintentional) rebuke: “David Lister should expose himself to more female comedians.”

I was walking across Waterloo Bridge on an evening a few weeks ago when I noticed a man perched precariously on the barrier. His bag and coat were piled on the ground behind him and as I got closer, I realised he was crying. He looked pale and exhausted and his arms shook as they gripped the metal bar. It wasn’t until I saw another woman approach him that I realised he was about to kill himself.

Preparations are underway for a comic opera about a Spanish artist who tried, hugely unsuccessfully, to restore a faded 1930 oil painting of Jesus Christ.

Ignore the nonchalant title of Nish Kumar’s latest show. From the moment he arrives on stage proclaiming “1, 2, 3, let’s go!”, it’s clear that he has arrived at this year’s festival with new-found fire in his belly.

There’s a section, midway through my new show, where Monkey takes the floor without me. He takes questions and gets the chance to bond with the audience without me guffawing and apologising and generally getting in the way. And I’m finding it to be a much cleaner, happier and occasionally more vulgar place.

Alexis Tsipras is about to face the favourite insult of the left since first the concept of left and right in politics was invented in the French revolution. He is going to be called a traitor. He might even given the ultimate Greek insult by his opponents and called Ephialtes – the man who sold the pass to the Persians at Thermopylae and allowed Xeres to destroy the 300 Spartans and march on Athens.

The 2.5-acre park is the most ambitious project to date by the graffiti artis

By now everyone has heard the name, with its tagline, “Life is short, have an affair.” Ashley Madison is a website for cheaters (reportedly 37 million of them), which recently made headlines when hackers stole customer information and threatened to post everyone’s data online.  This week apparently it made good on its promise. 

As a psychiatrist, I have been captivated by the reaction to Corbynites in the Labour leadership contest. Those who back Corbyn are being labelled by other Labour party members as more emotionally volatile and less predictable, grounded by the elder statesmen on the leadership side of the divide who see backing Anyone But Corbyn as a sign of maturity and calm. The Corbyn backers are said to be “in trauma” and their reaction is an “emotional spasm” to the shock of the general election. Less charitably... Читать дальше...

In the post-Target, post-Home Depot, post-OPM world, we’re no longer shocked or scandalized by even the largest corporate hacks.

It has taken me a while to get round to commenting on Denis MacShane’s book, Brexit: How Britain Will Leave Europe. It was published before the election, since when his pessimism as a supporter of EU membership needs amending in some ways.

All summer long, airports across Britain have been breaking records. Today, Manchester airport is expecting to handle more passengers than on any previous day – close to 100,000. Many of those travellers will be flying beyond Europe, and therefore could be paying more than they should for “airside” purchases.

If nothing else, the Home Secretary, Theresa May, showed that the British talent for understatement is alive and well when she remarked that Calais has had a “difficult summer”. In signing an agreement with her French counterpart to take more co-ordinated and effective action to deal with some of the roots of the problem, she and the French government also displayed a refreshing willingness to work together rather than trade cross-Channel insults. They also showed a readiness to take seriously the smuggling gangs... Читать дальше...

Gay and bisexual users of the Ashley Madison infidelity website have been left in fear for their lives after it emerged that the identities of users living in countries where homosexuality is illegal and even punishable by death have been posted online.