http://www.independent.co.uk/extras/saturday-magazine/features/?service=Rss http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-expects-from-athletes-to-heroes-870597.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-expects-from-athletes-to-heroes-870597.html <p>Prominently displayed in every sports hall in every town in China is a large red flag and a banner in bold Chinese characters exhorting the athletes below to always do their best to love and honour China.</p> Asia Sat, 19 Jul 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/gabriella-cilmi-meet-the-teen-queen-who-is-the-sound-of-summer-870601.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/gabriella-cilmi-meet-the-teen-queen-who-is-the-sound-of-summer-870601.html <p>Gabriella Cilmi spent most of the day before our interview being photographed on the Thames by the Australian press, the Oz media keen for a glamorous snapshot of the girl from Down Under making a splash on the other side of the world. Given that this is the most unpredictable British summer since that of 2007, it wasn't quite the pleasure it perhaps should have been.</p> Features Sat, 19 Jul 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/the-hop-farm-festival-letrsquos-go-to-the-hop-870603.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/the-hop-farm-festival-letrsquos-go-to-the-hop-870603.html <p>Two years ago, the Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller, best known for his restaging of the 1984 Battle of Orgreave between the police and striking miners, pitched up at the Frieze Art Fair in London with a single piece of work for sale, a poster that offered a novel twist on a famous Christian car-bumper sticker. Against a plain black background was a simple white slogan arranged over five decks. It read: "What Would Neil Young Do?"</p> Features Sat, 19 Jul 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/features/mary-portas-therersquos-something-about-mary-864536.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/features/mary-portas-therersquos-something-about-mary-864536.html <p>These are lean times for retailers. The modern consumer rarely needs to go shopping &ndash; rather, he or she wants to go shopping; and once recession bites, "retail therapy" can look about as desirable as that never-used gym membership. </p> Features Sat, 12 Jul 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art-and-architecture/features/sheer-polly-will-self-salutes-polly-borland-864543.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art-and-architecture/features/sheer-polly-will-self-salutes-polly-borland-864543.html <p>I'm one of those journalists, who, although he doesn't really have the right &ndash; I never watched compositors at work on the stone, I never wore a trench coat, I never fell over drunk in El Vino's &ndash; still likes to refer contemptuously to photographers as "snappers". If I have to do a story with a photographer, I'll use the term whenever I can: "Just wait for the snapper," I'll say; or, yawning, "the snapper won't like the light". Any excuse to remind all concerned of the primacy of words over pictures. A couple of years ago in the States, I was working with a snapper who told me, unabashed, that there were an estimated 20,000 professional photographers in Manhattan alone.</p> Features Sat, 12 Jul 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/features/home-genetic-tests-how-much-do-you-really-want-to-know-864572.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/features/home-genetic-tests-how-much-do-you-really-want-to-know-864572.html <p>A round 2 per cent of the population will suffer from bipolar disorder at some point in their lives. That doesn't sound much. But what if there were a test which would tell you that you were likely to be one of those who will go on to develop it. Would you take it?</p> Features Sat, 12 Jul 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/chinas-lost-children-return-to-sichuan-859522.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/chinas-lost-children-return-to-sichuan-859522.html <p>Wang Kanghua ran down the street to Juyuan Middle School as soon as her house stopped shaking from the earthquake, and dug with her fingers to find her daughter, Zhou Yating. </p> Asia Sat, 05 Jul 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/hooray-for-henry-the-curious-world-of-henry-conway-859684.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/hooray-for-henry-the-curious-world-of-henry-conway-859684.html <p>Henry Conway is the older son of the "disgraced" Tory MP Derek Conway, the one who paid his younger son, Freddie, nearly &pound;50,000 from public funds for doing Parliamentary work that he may not actually have done, and now stands accused of doing much the same with Henry. Still, no mind. As Henry is now a brain surgeon as well as our foremost cancer specialist it was, at least, taxpayers' money exceedingly well spent whichever way it pans out. OK, only joshing. Henry, 25, is the one who describes himself as "blond, bouncy and one for the boys" and who, shortly after the scandal broke, arrived at Mahiki, a Mayfair nightclub, in a horse-drawn carriage and dressed as a regency dandy. Actually, thinking this through, do we own that horse-drawn carriage? Did we pay for it? And might we have it back? (Stupid, I know; where would we keep the horses? I can't have them here.)</p> People Sat, 05 Jul 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/valeriya-russiarsquos-greatest-export-after-gas-and-oil-854990.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/valeriya-russiarsquos-greatest-export-after-gas-and-oil-854990.html <p>What, you might wonder, would get a rich Russian in Switzerland really excited? Is it a particularly exclusive type of champagne brought over from France? Perhaps an overly extravagant chocolatier? No, what Iosif has stopped the car to purchase is a long-life cappuccino drink, served refrigerated in a plastic cup with a foil top at petrol stations across Switzerland. Disappointment. The cappuccino shelf is empty. There are only caffe lattes left. </p> People Sat, 28 Jun 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/features/the-lunatic-fringe-is-moonlight-the-miracle-cure-854991.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/features/the-lunatic-fringe-is-moonlight-the-miracle-cure-854991.html <p>Late one afternoon this February, I set off from Tucson, Arizona, to spend a night beneath the moon. It was rush hour and I found myself joining the stream of commuters on their way home from this sprawling town, the second largest in the state. Gradually the traffic thinned out until after 30 miles I myself peeled off, beckoned by a sign pointing down a dirt road to the right. Ten minutes later, dust billowing in my wake, I pulled up at my destination, a huge mirror nestling in the Sonoran desert.</p> Features Sat, 28 Jun 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/why-do-children-carry-knives-the-view-from-the-streets-855001.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/why-do-children-carry-knives-the-view-from-the-streets-855001.html <p>At 1pm on Sunday 1 June, a breakdancing event called Young Guns was kicking off in Bradford. Shane Regan was introducing it. He explained that breakdancing was a way for the teenagers to do battle by dancing rather than fighting, that he wanted people to shoot each other down with their moves, not their guns. In the break, Oba, a young performer, spat his lyrics; the buzz was that scouts from the Ministry of Sound were going to be there. The event was a success, except that Shane's mum, Pat, was supposed to be there too. She didn't turn up, which was odd &ndash; a prominent member of Mothers Against Violence, the 53-year-old had been a vigorous campaigner against gun and knife crime ever since her son was shot dead in 1996. It was unlike her to miss an engagement. When Shane went home that night he found out why: his mother was dead; she had been stabbed multiple times. Her 20-year-old grandson &ndash; Shane's nephew &ndash; who has a history of mental health problems, is currently in custody. </p> This Britain Sat, 28 Jun 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/features/sophie-marceau-fatal-attraction-850871.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/features/sophie-marceau-fatal-attraction-850871.html <p>Heavens, Sophie Marceau is beautiful. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. And just for the readers out there who are slow &ndash; I know who you are; don't think I don't &ndash; she is this: beautiful. Amazingly, considering how far ahead of the game I usually am, I am not the first to notice. Previous interviewers have noticed, particularly the male ones (can you believe?). She has "burnished eyes" and "rose-bud lips" which, when they are not being "rose-bud", are "oyster plump". She has "thick glossed hair that tempts the fingers", is "the most distractingly sexy woman I have ever met" and one naughty little fellow was even seduced by the "smooth white curve of her skin". I do not know which curve in particular he was following as it was never specified. True, I am lucky in that I am very, very pretty indeed, but I do sometimes wonder about being this beautiful, and how my life might have panned out differently if I were. I later ask Ms Marceau if she ever imagines what it might be like to not be beautiful, and how her life might have panned out differently. "I do not think about this, non," she says. At least we now know. And at least she doesn't deny being beautiful, which many beautiful women do even if it is the most interesting thing about them. </p> Features Sat, 21 Jun 2008 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/eckhart-tolle-this-man-could-change-your-life-850872.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/eckhart-tolle-this-man-could-change-your-life-850872.html <p>We live in an age of revitalised New Age mumbo jumbo; and these days no one is more jumbo with his mumbo than Eckhart Tolle.</p> People Sat, 21 Jun 2008 00:00:01 +0100