http://www.independent.co.uk/?service=Rss http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-amp-bluray-outnumbered-series-2-12-various-directors-210-mins-1819423.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-amp-bluray-outnumbered-series-2-12-various-directors-210-mins-1819423.html <p> This sitcom is a surprise gem. The set-up of mildly stressed out middle-class parents and their three exasperating children is well-worn territory and there are few driving dramatic incidents. Yet therein lies <i>Outnumbered's </i>charm – it takes very ordinary slice-of-life situations and renders them believable and very funny. Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin's script is well-observed, but the key to the show's success is the kids. Allowed to improvise, Daniel Roche, as anarchic monkey Ben, and scene-stealing Ramona Marquez, who plays Karen, come out with some brilliant unscripted lines that prompt snorts of laughter. It sometimes gets too realistic, so the children's shouting may have you reaching for the volume control. </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:01:54 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-amp-bluray-terminator-sarah-connor-chronicles-season-2-15-various-directors-900-mins-1819421.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-amp-bluray-terminator-sarah-connor-chronicles-season-2-15-various-directors-900-mins-1819421.html <p> Since the Terminator first blazed on to cinema screens in 1984, it has fulfilled to be back again and again. As <i>Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles </i>returns for a second series, the format is familiar. The setting is present day Los Angeles and Sarah Connor is trying to protect her son John, a future leader of the human resistance, from the killer robots sent back from the future. Lena Headey is the series' strong focal point as Sarah, while the plot lines and action keep things interesting. Yet the script is often so clunky it might have been written by the robots. It is certainly worth a look for fans but won't win a new audience. </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:01:49 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-amp-bluray-moon-15-duncan-jones-97-mins-1819418.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-amp-bluray-moon-15-duncan-jones-97-mins-1819418.html <p> Duncan "David Bowie's son" Jones's low-fi sci-fi, which features no sex, very little violence or budget and ostensibly one actor (Sam Rockwell), is a cerebral delight. Sam Bell (Rockwell), like ET, just wants to go home; three years working on the dark side of the Moon with only Kevin Spacey's creepy voice, as spaceship computer, Gerty, will do that. Sam's suffering hallucinations and headaches and a near-fatal accident lands him in the infirmary. He awakes to find a younger version of himself stalking his bed. Jones's intelligently constructed, distinctly retro film borrows from the best – <i>Silent Running, Alien, Blade Runner, Solaris, Dark Star </i>and <i>Outland </i>– and is the best kind of paranoia movie, with unfussy dialogue, a heightened sense of isolation and corporate wickedness to the fore. </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:01:16 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/the-ten-best-england-v-brazil-matches-1819605.html http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/the-ten-best-england-v-brazil-matches-1819605.html ]]> <p> England take on Brazil in Qatar this weekend in a mouth-watering fixture between two of the world's most football crazy nations. </p> News & Comment Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:01:11 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-snow-white-and-the-seven-dwarfs-pg-various-directors-dvd-83-mins-1819424.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-snow-white-and-the-seven-dwarfs-pg-various-directors-dvd-83-mins-1819424.html <p> You can see the wicked queen's point. Her chubby-cheeked step-daughter, Snow White, is quite annoying, constantly chuntering away to any small animal within listening distance and obsessively, compulsively cleaning everything. Kevin Lima's <i>Enchanted</i> (2007) did an exquisite job of mocking this classic fairy tale and we're now used to a more sophisticated and arch type of animation. But Walt Disney's 1937 film, which took three years to make, is still sensational to look at and packs a sinister bite – you never forget the queen's wild-eyed old hag offering the gormless White a poisoned apple or White fleeing into the snarling forest – while "Heigh-Ho" is still the best marching to work song there is. </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:01:02 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/screen-talk-biels-comic-romp-1819391.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/screen-talk-biels-comic-romp-1819391.html <p> It is an accepted universal comedy truth that after marriage, sex stops. However, a project that has attracted Jessica Biel seems to be willing to miss the point to make a joke. </p> News Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:59 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/album-dave-rawlings-machine-a-friend-of-a-friend-acony-1819439.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/album-dave-rawlings-machine-a-friend-of-a-friend-acony-1819439.html ]]> <p> Better known as Gillian Welch's personal and performing partner, Dave Rawlings' first album in his own right is an outright triumph, reflecting not just his instrumental and production expertise, but his considerable songwriting abilities too. </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:58 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/gaming/games-review-invizimals-1819396.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/gaming/games-review-invizimals-1819396.html ]]> Gaming Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:57 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/navigator--reveal-records-mixtape-giveaway-1819588.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/navigator--reveal-records-mixtape-giveaway-1819588.html ]]> <p> Available exclusively to readers of The Independent online, Navigator and Reveal records present a compilation of 30 tracks of the finest new music around, all free to download. </p> Features Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:55 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/gaming/in-wow-yoursquoll-neverwalk-alone-1819403.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/gaming/in-wow-yoursquoll-neverwalk-alone-1819403.html ]]> <p> Feeling lonely questing around Northrend? Wish you had something to give you some unconditional love after a hard day’s spell-casting? </p> Gaming Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:49 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/melody-gardot-an-accidental-musician-1819426.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/melody-gardot-an-accidental-musician-1819426.html ]]> <p> Melody Gardot is sitting in a New York bar swilling a glass of Cognac. A bartender dims the lights, but Gardot keeps her dark glasses on. "The only thing I long for," she says, stroking the large black cat curled up on her lap, "is warm weather. I'm really no good here. I've had more pain in my body in the last nine days than I've had the last six months". </p> Features Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:43 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/gaming/news-ofthe-silver-screen-1819401.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/gaming/news-ofthe-silver-screen-1819401.html ]]> <p> Movies.ign.com has put together a fascinating list of forthcoming film adaptations of video games. From Bioshock to Call of Duty, Prince of Persia to Warcraft, the site gives the lowdown on the latest projects and how likely they are to see the light of day. </p> Gaming Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:41 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/reviews/album-alberto-veronesi-placido-domingo-violeta-urmana-puccini-ritrovato-deutsche-grammophon-1819500.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/reviews/album-alberto-veronesi-placido-domingo-violeta-urmana-puccini-ritrovato-deutsche-grammophon-1819500.html <p> Echoing the recent trend for classical music played with authentic period instrumentation, Alberto Veronesi here presents a series of Puccini arias and orchestral pieces according to the original versions premiered by the composer. Thus, do we get to hear "Con Onor Muore", Cio-Cio-San's ritual suicide from Madama Butterfly, in a form unheard since the 1904 premiere, and "Sola, Perduta, Abbandonata!" from Manon Lescaut in the original 1893 manner. Though largely of academic interest, it's all skilfully rendered. </p> <p> <b>Download this:</b> Sia Benedetto il Giorno; Sola, Perduta, Abbandonata! </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:36 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/the-white-ribbon-15-1819430.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/the-white-ribbon-15-1819430.html ]]> <p> When a story is set in the years just prior to the First World War, one can usually expect its keynote to be one of lament and loss. In his poem "MCMXIV", Philip Larkin defined the mood in one line – "Never such innocence again". </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:35 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/album-leonard-cohen-live-at-the-isle-of-wight-1970-columbia-1819435.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/album-leonard-cohen-live-at-the-isle-of-wight-1970-columbia-1819435.html ]]> <p> Now that Leonard Cohen is acknowledged as a musical treasure, it's fascinating to revisit this performance from a time when his star was in its early ascendancy. </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:35 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/album-john-mayer-battle-studies-columbia-1819442.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/album-john-mayer-battle-studies-columbia-1819442.html ]]> <p> Though only moderately appreciated in the UK, in America John Mayer is a kind of all-purpose one-man media industry, combining a highly successful music career with sidelines in design, journalism and clothing, whilst becoming a gossip-column fixture through his relationships with such as Jessica Simpson and, most recently, Jennifer Aniston. </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:35 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/gaming/all-hail-the-new-queen-of-the-small-screen-1819400.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/gaming/all-hail-the-new-queen-of-the-small-screen-1819400.html ]]> <p> She looks like Sarah Palin’s leather-clad twin and can fire four guns at once. She uses her hair as an offensive weapon and wields a cobra-headed whip. She’s inspired lookalike competitions (although there’s no news on whether La Palin entered) and taken Japan by storm. Oh, and she can turn into a pather too. </p> Gaming Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:33 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/album-stereophonics-keep-calm-and-carry-on-mercury-1819431.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/album-stereophonics-keep-calm-and-carry-on-mercury-1819431.html ]]> <p> For their 7th album – their first with guitarist Adam Zindani listed as a full member – Stereophonics have enlisted the help of producer Jim Abbiss, perhaps hoping for a little of the anthemic fairy-dust he's sprinkled over Arctic Monkeys and Kasabian in recent years. And in places, that's not far from the case: "I Got Your Number" is a Kasabian-esque galumphing boogie, while the turgid riff and windy clichés of "Live'n'Love" are reminiscent of Oasis at their most emptily anthemic. </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:31 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/ginger-baker-drum-cat-who-got-the-cream-1819419.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/ginger-baker-drum-cat-who-got-the-cream-1819419.html ]]> <p> Even if you missed growing up in the 1960s, you're bound to have heard Ginger Baker's explosive drumming with the rock bands Cream and Blind Faith. In both beat combos, Baker was an amazing sight. </p> Features Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:21 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/gaming/games-review-call-of-duty-modernwarfare-2-1819393.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/gaming/games-review-call-of-duty-modernwarfare-2-1819393.html ]]> Gaming Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:21 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/reviews/album-yannick-nezetseguin-ravel-daphnis-et-chloe-suite-no-2-emi-classics-1819499.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/reviews/album-yannick-nezetseguin-ravel-daphnis-et-chloe-suite-no-2-emi-classics-1819499.html <p> The young French-Canadian conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin proves particularly adept here at extracting the maximum impact from a series of Ravel waltzes and "miniatures", most notably the second suite from Daphnis et Chloé. The lushly rendered first movement's evocative sunrise music is simply gorgeous, with glimmers of cello leading to a glorious orchestral sunburst, tailing into wistfully pastoral oboe, while there are traces of the eastern flavour of the Bolero discernible in the second movement's flute arabesques and underscoring harp arpeggios. </p> <p> <b>Download this:</b> Daphnis et Chloé Suite No 2 </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:17 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/my-fantasy-band-tori-amos-1819409.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/my-fantasy-band-tori-amos-1819409.html Features Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:17 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/martin-sheen-i-am-officially-the-king-of-hollywood-1819392.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/martin-sheen-i-am-officially-the-king-of-hollywood-1819392.html ]]> <p> If life begins at 40, Michael Sheen has certainly begun a very different one since hitting the landmark in February. </p> Features Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:15 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/gaming/games-review-singstar-take-that-1819394.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/gaming/games-review-singstar-take-that-1819394.html ]]> Gaming Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:13 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/album-mercury-rev-the-complete-peel-sessions-universal-1819444.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/album-mercury-rev-the-complete-peel-sessions-universal-1819444.html ]]> <p> Mercury Rev are the kind of group for whom Peel Sessions were originally conceived: an all-channels-open, questing outfit who took the opportunity to reassess old favourites and break virgin territory. </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:09 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/real-life-stories-from-the-film-front-line-1819399.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/real-life-stories-from-the-film-front-line-1819399.html ]]> <p> It is a slow Saturday afternoon in the Loews beachfront hotel in Santa Monica, California, midway through the American Film Market (AFM). These are tough times in the independent film world. </p> Features Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:08 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/album-leona-lewis-echo-syco-1819429.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/album-leona-lewis-echo-syco-1819429.html ]]> <p> Of all the talent-show turns unearthed in the past decade, Leona Lewis is the only one to have parlayed the opportunity, when it knocked, into a significant international career; and judging by this safe, careful follow-up to the multi-platinum <i>Spirit,</i> she's not taking any unnecessary chances that might prematurely derail that career. She might admirably refer to the original Greek myth – in which an unrequited lover pines away till just her voice remained – in explaining the album's title, but one doesn't have to be a complete cynic to place a more prosaic interpretation on <i>Echo,</i> so closely does it stick to its predecessor's formula. </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:06 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/gaming/games-review-star-wars-battlefrontelite-squadron-1819395.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/gaming/games-review-star-wars-battlefrontelite-squadron-1819395.html ]]> Gaming Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:06 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/reviews/album-nikolaus-harnoncourt-gershwin-porgy-amp-bess-rca-red-seal-1819498.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/reviews/album-nikolaus-harnoncourt-gershwin-porgy-amp-bess-rca-red-seal-1819498.html <p> Gershwin's celebrated "folk opera" has, through copious truncation, come to be regarded more as a musical than an opera – an attitude which Nikolaus Harnoncourt is at pains to redress in this vast 3CD presentation done with a vibrantly expressive cast led by Jonathan Lemalu and Isabelle Kabatu in the title roles. It's an exuberant experience, with all the emblematic arias handled perfectly, while Harnoncourt's exacting attention to detail comes through in countless small but telling ways, such as the use of authentic African drums (as per Gershwin's intentions) rather than bongos in the "Symphony of Noise" opening dawnscape of the final scene. </p> <p> <b>Download this:</b> Summertime; It Ain't Necessarily So; 'Bess, You Is My Woman Now; Symphony of Noise </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/patrick-cockburn-the-general-is-right-liam-fox-is-wrong-1819743.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/patrick-cockburn-the-general-is-right-liam-fox-is-wrong-1819743.html <p>Just when President Barack Obama looked as if he might be railroaded into sending tens of thousands more US troops to Afghanistan, the American envoy to Kabul has warned him not to do so.</p> Commentators Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/steve-richards/steve-richards-size-should-not-be-everything-in-camerons-vision-of-a-modern-state-1819742.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/steve-richards/steve-richards-size-should-not-be-everything-in-camerons-vision-of-a-modern-state-1819742.html ]]> <p>Since becoming leader of his party David Cameron has delivered more speeches on the theme of poverty and the delivery of public services than any other issue. From his victory speech in the leadership contest at the end of 2005 to his widely reported lecture this week, Cameron has made his case with persistence. All the vaguely familiar phrases that arise from his leadership, such as the "post bureaucratic age" and the need for "social responsibility", connect to this theme. His determined navigation across thorny terrain provokes several questions. Is he serious or opportunistic? Has he worked out how he plans to implement his vision? Will the plans work?</p> Steve Richards Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/ricky-gervais-returns-with-new-workplace-comedy-1819909.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/ricky-gervais-returns-with-new-workplace-comedy-1819909.html ]]> <p>More than eight years after The Office changed British comedy forever, Ricky Gervais has helped create a new television sitcom that finds its laughs in the drudgery and absurdities of another unglamorous workplace.</p> TV & Radio Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/victory-for-ithe-independenti-as-secret-court-opens-its-doors-1819914.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/victory-for-ithe-independenti-as-secret-court-opens-its-doors-1819914.html ]]> <p>A secretive court which handles some of the most difficult and sensitive cases in England and Wales is to open to the media for the first time, after a successful legal challenge by <i>The Independent</i>.</p> Home News Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/slimline-queens-speech-to-push-financial-reform-1819908.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/slimline-queens-speech-to-push-financial-reform-1819908.html ]]> <p>Measures to improve social care for the elderly, create jobs, curb bankers' bonuses and cut the huge public deficit will be included in next Wednesday's final Queen's Speech before the general election.</p> UK Politics Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/ian-birrell-it-is-patients-who-will-end-up-losing-out-1819920.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/ian-birrell-it-is-patients-who-will-end-up-losing-out-1819920.html <p>Nurses are the lifeblood of the health service. Without good people on the medical front line, all the technological breakthroughs, genetic advances and brilliant doctors are meaningless if infections are allowed to spread, patients left in fouled bedding or their families treated in a callous manner. </p> Commentators Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/medvedev-promises-new-era-for-russian-democracy-1819927.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/medvedev-promises-new-era-for-russian-democracy-1819927.html ]]> <p>In his biggest speech since taking office yesterday, President Dmitry Medvedev laid out a harsh critique of the state of Russia and unveiled a blueprint for its reform.</p> Europe Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/barbarians-to-angels-by-peter-s-wells-1819445.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/barbarians-to-angels-by-peter-s-wells-1819445.html <p> "The names conjure up images of savagery and destruction," but Wells believes the Visigoths, Huns, Vandals had a bum rap. The Dark Ages were not so dark after all. </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/chaucers-london-by-ar-myers-1819449.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/chaucers-london-by-ar-myers-1819449.html <p> Though "a place of dirt and violence", 14th-century London had "not yet lost a sense of community". Myers's lively panorama includes the fashionable shopping centre and take-away food joints. Wrongdoing also has a timeless quality. </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-joy-of-eating-the-virago-book-of-food-edited-by-jill-foulston-1819451.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-joy-of-eating-the-virago-book-of-food-edited-by-jill-foulston-1819451.html <p>Sampling this banquet of all-female food writing – the sorority is justified by the editor on rather curious grounds, "in the most basic sense, women are food for their offspring" – the reader may be surprised to discover a meagre serving from the stars of literary gastronomy. Jane Grigson, Alice B. Toklas, Alice Waters and Elizabeth David are represented by a single dollop, though the latter's contribution is one of her wisest paragraphs: "If I had my way, my Christmas Day eating and drinking would consist of... a smoked salmon sandwich and a glass of champagne on a tray in bed." </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/esthers-inheritance-by-s225ndor-m225rai-1819453.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/esthers-inheritance-by-s225ndor-m225rai-1819453.html <p> Esther is preparing to meet her former lover, Lajos, twenty years after he revealed himself to be a fantasist and thief who married her more beautiful sister, Vilma. </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/knut-hamsun-dreamer-and-dissenter-by-ingar-sletten-kolloen-1819455.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/knut-hamsun-dreamer-and-dissenter-by-ingar-sletten-kolloen-1819455.html <p>Nobel Prize-winning novelists are often thought sagacious, unfazed by salt mines or subordinate clauses. Picture, however, the 50-year-old Norwegian novelist Knut Hamsun at work in 1909 in a house with the woman, Marie, who would soon become his second wife. Some words were slowly emerging from the paper that he crumpled up and hurled towards the bin. </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-lacuna-by-barbara-kingsolver-1819457.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-lacuna-by-barbara-kingsolver-1819457.html <p>At the heart of Barbara Kingsolver's sweeping historical novel lies a reluctant writer, his recalcitrant stenographer and a Nabokovian dilemma: fragments of Harrison William Shepherd's furtively written memoir are stashed in a bank vault by his assistant, Violet Brown, and await posthumous publication despite his wish to have every last sheaf burned in his back garden. </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-united-states-of-mcsweeneys-edited-by-nick-hornby-and--eli-horowitz-1819474.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-united-states-of-mcsweeneys-edited-by-nick-hornby-and--eli-horowitz-1819474.html ]]> <p>"Things I have been reading", Nick Hornby's recently retired column from the monthly magazine The Believer, was reassuring for anyone whose rapid acquisition of books outstripped their reading. Each column began with a list of Hornby's "books bought" and "books read" from the month, and the former list was invariably longer than the latter. As he admits in his introduction to this 10th anniversary selection of its short stories, McSweeney's Quarterly Concern is just the sort of beautifully produced publication that even bestselling authors feel compelled to buy, only to leave it conspicuously on a shelf, beloved but unread.</p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/observations-gavin-turk-and-paula-rego-take-on-torture-1819473.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/observations-gavin-turk-and-paula-rego-take-on-torture-1819473.html <p>Some of Britain's most prominent contemporary artists have donated works to the Medical Foundation Art Auction, whose proceeds will support the victims of torture. </p> Features Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/boyd-tonkin-on-the-waterfront--in-a-fluid-istanbul-1819472.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/boyd-tonkin-on-the-waterfront--in-a-fluid-istanbul-1819472.html ]]> <p>Turkey has had an annual trade-based book fair for 28 years but, until this month, never an international literary festival. Now, with her team, the dynamic Nermin Mollaoglu of the Kalem agency has successfully made good that lack. Last week the first Istanbul Tanpinar Festival gathered more than 80 authors from 30 countries for events in bookshops, cafés, arts centres and campuses across the most eclectic and labyrinthine of all great cities. It even commandered a proper Sultan's palace - the Çiragan on the Bosphorus, now part of a luxury hotel - for the launch. </p> Features Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/one-minute-with-sandi-toksvig-1819471.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/one-minute-with-sandi-toksvig-1819471.html ]]> Features Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-tin-drum-by-gnter-grass-trans-breon-mitchellbr-selfs-murder-by-bernhard-schlink-trans-peter-constantinebr-a-minutes-silence-by-siegfried-lenz-trans-anthea-bell-1819470.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-tin-drum-by-gnter-grass-trans-breon-mitchellbr-selfs-murder-by-bernhard-schlink-trans-peter-constantinebr-a-minutes-silence-by-siegfried-lenz-trans-anthea-bell-1819470.html <p>In some fantasy parallel universe of open-door British publishing, we might greet the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall's fall by hailing the English version of Uwe Tellkamp's Der Turm. After all, Tellkamp's landmark epic of Dresden in the 1980s, as the GDR slithered towards its end, won the Booker-equivalent German Book Prize a year ago. Back in the real world of scant and sluggish translations, readers who have had their curiosity about Germany's singular modern fate piqued or re-ignited by this week's uneasy partying have the usual UK mixed bag of literary imports to enjoy: the re-translation of a momentous classic that scrubs up beautifully, a crime novel with political resonance from a global bestseller, and – the nicest find of all – a late-career gem by another postwar master of conscience and memory.</p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/thomas-sutcliffe/tom-sutcliffe-the-very-model-of-a-modern-museum-1819469.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/thomas-sutcliffe/tom-sutcliffe-the-very-model-of-a-modern-museum-1819469.html <p>I don't quite know how I'd managed to avoid the Ashmolean Museum all my life, but until just the other day I had. "Avoiding" isn't quite the right word of course; it wasn't that I crossed the road to steer clear every time I visited Oxford and at all other times the chances of falling through the front door was non-existent. A museum doesn't follow you around, pleading for a relationship, after all, and the Ashmolean could have been said to have been shyer than most in some respects, an institution that kept itself to itself. In fact, a dim sense of it as a dusty and superannuated place may have been one of the reasons I never went, though I'm ashamed to say (it's a formulaic phrase but it's actually true in this case) that I never really thought about it that clearly. Anyway, I've broken my duck now – visiting to see what the architect Rick Maher has done to the building for its £61 million refit and departing a bit startled to see what treasures I'd unwittingly ignored. </p> Thomas Sutcliffe Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/samuel-johnson-by-peter-martin-1819468.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/samuel-johnson-by-peter-martin-1819468.html <p> Tackling the best known of all biographical subjects is a tall order, but Martin has achieved an enthralling and original portrait. Despite his Stephen Fry-like celebrity ("I believe there is hardly a day in which there is not something about me in the papers"), Johnson emerges as sad and afflicted, in keeping with his dark reflection shortly before death on "the general disease of my life". </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/observations-rosie-oddie-follows-in-her-fathers-musical-footsteps-1819467.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/observations-rosie-oddie-follows-in-her-fathers-musical-footsteps-1819467.html ]]> <p>Prepare yourselves for the latest daughter of a familiar face trying her luck in the music world. Rosie Oddie, daughter of TV twitcher Bill, comes with a husky singing voice. Her first appearance came rather tentatively a couple of years back as Rosie Oddie and the Odd Squad. Her band has forged a denser, more complex sound than their previous ska-pop shtick. It better suits this former schoolmate of Peaches Geldof's gritty, rock'n'roll vocal, that nods more to Skunk Anansie than Lily Allen.</p> Features Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/observations-awardwinning-young-artists-master-raphael-and-drer-1819466.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/observations-awardwinning-young-artists-master-raphael-and-drer-1819466.html ]]> <p>The inaugural winners of the Young Masters Art Prize have been announced – artists Hector de Gregorio and Ghost of a Dream, jointly. They are among 16 artists who were inspired by the Old Masters to create new work. For 35 year-old, Spanish, de Gregorio, this year was already going rather well, with a sell-out Royal Academy graduation show which saw Sir Terence Conran and Theo Fennell snap up his mixed-media work, which reinvents historical paintings by introducing his own new narratives. He digitally photographs his subjects and prints the images onto canvas before treating them heavily with varnishes, oils, and waxes to make them look like weathered, 500 year-old, works.</p> Features Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/cook-pledges-to-keep-on-disturbing-the-neighbours-1819806.html http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/cook-pledges-to-keep-on-disturbing-the-neighbours-1819806.html ]]> <p>No manner of Robinho crises – and there was another one brewing last night – will transport Manchester City to the depths of winter and the misery when the deal to bring Kaka to Eastlands collapsed in January. Then, the executive chairman Garry Cook was slumped on the sofa with his American wife, Wendy, gazing blankly at a TV screen and wondering where it had all gone so wrong.</p> Premier League Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/european/russian-referee-attempts-suicide-1819805.html http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/european/russian-referee-attempts-suicide-1819805.html ]]> <p>The referee who took charge of Juande Ramos's controversial last game as CSKA Moscow manager is recovering in a psychiatric hospital after attempting to commit suicide. The former Tottenham manager was sacked after just 46 days in charge of CSKA following a controversial 3-1 home defeat to FK Moskva on 25 October, but that was just one consequence of a match that lies at the heart of a network of reports of possible match-fixing and Chechen-based mafia corruption.</p> European Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/english-top-flight-rejects-the-old-firm-1819804.html http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/english-top-flight-rejects-the-old-firm-1819804.html ]]> <p>England's 20 elite clubs yesterday killed off any hopes that Celtic and Rangers held of joining the Premier League in the foreseeable future by voting against proposals to invite them south. The idea of the Old Firm joining the League was described in an official League statement as "not desirable or viable". One source said: "In a vote, the clubs came up with an emphatic 'no' to the idea". The League's chief executive Richard Scudamore said yesterday that the Old Firm would "never" be welcome. </p> Premier League Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/cricket/south-africa-want-kieswetter-back-1819803.html http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/cricket/south-africa-want-kieswetter-back-1819803.html ]]> <p>South Africa will attempt to persuade Craig Kieswetter to change allegiance yet again and ditch England. It threatens to bring to a head the tension between the countries over who plays where and for whom.</p> Cricket Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/dwight-yorke-southgate-got-a-huge-break-ndash-why-didnt-i-1819802.html http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/dwight-yorke-southgate-got-a-huge-break-ndash-why-didnt-i-1819802.html ]]> <p> Five years ago this month, Blackburn Rovers supporter Jason Perryman was banned from every football stadium in England and Wales, for five years. The crime for which his punishment is almost up was to make monkey chants and gestures at Dwight Yorke, as the footballer, then with Birmingham City but previously a Rovers player, warmed up on the touchline at Ewood Park. </p> News & Comment Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/tennis/murray-fails-to-recover-but-can-see-silver-lining-1819801.html http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/tennis/murray-fails-to-recover-but-can-see-silver-lining-1819801.html ]]> <p> They are used to tumbles and mishaps in the converted ice rink where Andy Murray played here yesterday, but the 22-year-old Scot hardly looked distressed after his fall in the third round of the Paris Masters. Despite his 1-6, 6-3, 6-4 defeat in an hour and 37 minutes by Radek Stepanek, Murray declared himself more than happy with his performances over the last 10 days given his return after a six-week break following an injury to his left wrist. </p> Tennis Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-union/international/mermoz-on-centre-stage-against-boks-1819800.html http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-union/international/mermoz-on-centre-stage-against-boks-1819800.html ]]> <p>The heated discussion about how far the Wallabies are ahead of England in their team-building for the next World Cup – a very long way indeed, if last weekend's events at Twickenham were any guide – could be put into an uncomfortable perspective tonight when France play South Africa in the great rugby hotbed of Toulouse. The <i>Tricolores</i>'s new midfield pairing of Maxime Mermoz and Yann David brings together centres with a combined age of 44 and if they click against a side as good as the Springboks, the next global gathering in 2011 will be their playground.</p> International Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/golf/wentworth-hazards-to-tame-the-bighitters-1819799.html http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/golf/wentworth-hazards-to-tame-the-bighitters-1819799.html ]]> <p>Players at the 2010 PGA Championship at Wentworth will face one of the most treacherous closing holes in golf after a remodelling of the famous West Course, organisers said yesterday. </p> Golf Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/the-big-question-what-are-the-crown-jewels-of-sport-and-why-is-there-a-row-over-them-1819751.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/the-big-question-what-are-the-crown-jewels-of-sport-and-why-is-there-a-row-over-them-1819751.html ]]> TV & Radio Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/more-bad-news-for-city-from-robinho-1819809.html http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/more-bad-news-for-city-from-robinho-1819809.html ]]> <p>Robinho was last night at the centre of another of the controversies which have bedevilled Manchester City's trip to Abu Dhabi, as Brazil declared they may play him in one or both of the nation's internationals, against the club's express wishes.</p> Premier League Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/internationals/brady-fears-referee-could-favour-france-1819808.html http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/internationals/brady-fears-referee-could-favour-france-1819808.html ]]> <p>The verbal jousting ahead of the World Cup play-off gained a bitter edge yesterday with Liam Brady suggesting that Fifa's controversial decision to seed the draw places the spotlight on the match officials and the French defender Eric Abidal warning of "malice and provocation" from Giovanni Trapattoni's side.</p> International Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/cudicini-in-motorbike-smash-1819807.html http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/cudicini-in-motorbike-smash-1819807.html ]]> <p>The Tottenham Hotspur goalkeeper Carlo Cudicini fractured his wrists and injured his pelvis after being involved in a serious road accident yesterday morning. The Italian was admitted to hospital after his motorbike collided with a car in Walthamstow, East London. </p> Premier League Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/andreas-whittam-smith/andreas-whittam-smith-brown-is-plunging-down-the-same-abyss-as-major-1819750.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/andreas-whittam-smith/andreas-whittam-smith-brown-is-plunging-down-the-same-abyss-as-major-1819750.html <p>Before Gordon Brown, the only prime minister of the past 60 years to have found himself constantly vilified was John Major. If two similar episodes are enough to constitute a trend, the manhunt is a new development in British politics. There are similarities between the two cases. </p> Andreas Whittam Smith Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/susie-rushton-i-asked-for-ketchup-ndash-not-judgement-1819749.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/susie-rushton-i-asked-for-ketchup-ndash-not-judgement-1819749.html <p>As if their hours, terrible pay and throbbing feet weren't enough, an American restaurant owner has now published a rather bossy list of 100 "don'ts" for waiters and waitresses. It has been to the taste of many diners; seafood restaurateur Bruce Buschel's commandments remained near the top of NYT.com's "most emailed" charts last week. Plenty of his suggestions hit the target. For instance: "6. Do not lead the witness with, 'Bottled water or just tap?' Both are fine. Remain neutral." Or: "73. Do not bring soup without a spoon. Few things are more frustrating than a bowl of hot soup with no spoon." And definitely: "94. Do not play an entire CD of any artist. If someone doesn't like Frightened Rabbit or Michael Bublé, you have just ruined a meal." Many of Buschel's gripes only apply on his side of the Atlantic, such as "10. Do not inject your personal favourites when explaining the specials." Also only in America: "41. Saying, 'No problem' is a problem. It has a tone of insincerity or sarcasm."</p> Commentators Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/terence-blacker/terence-blacker-do-celebrities-have-all-the-answers-1819748.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/terence-blacker/terence-blacker-do-celebrities-have-all-the-answers-1819748.html <p>The GPs have spoken. A plague of "heath hoaxes" is upon us, promoted by those who should know better – the famous and the rich. The most useless of these alternative treatments, according to a survey of doctors carried out by the isurance firm Aviva, is called "cupping" and is associated with Gwyneth Paltrow. Then there is that old favourite of Princess Diana's, colonic irrigation.</p> Terence Blacker Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-immigration-1819747.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-immigration-1819747.html <p>You report (9 November) that the Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, is to launch a campaign stating that immigration is a "good thing" for Britain.</p> Letters Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-brothers-beyond-1819746.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-brothers-beyond-1819746.html <p>One hopes that the bullock which knocked out David Dimbleby, causing him to miss chairing his first episode of Question Time in more than 15 years, was suitably ashamed of itself. We are hardly so blessed with distinguished broadcasters that we can afford to have their safety threatened by rogue livestock.</p> Leading Articles Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-scandalous-profiteering-1819745.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-scandalous-profiteering-1819745.html <p>Profits are up at British Gas. The energy supplier is set to make £541m this year, massively up from £379m the year before. Its parent company, Centrica, is expected to report a full year operating profit of £1.84bn. That is an outrage at a time when wholesale oil and gas prices are at a three-year low and yet the bills being paid by ordinary householders are staggeringly high.</p> Leading Articles Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-a-lack-of-strategy-not-troops-is-the-key-afghan-problem-1819744.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-a-lack-of-strategy-not-troops-is-the-key-afghan-problem-1819744.html <p>Ambassadors are supposed to be diplomatic. But, by all accounts, there was nothing particularly sensitive about the opinions outlined in the leaked memo from the American Ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry. In the note to the White House, Mr Eikenberry is said to have articulated grave concerns about Hamid Karzai's government and argued against sending more US troops to the country.</p> Leading Articles Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/general/others/cycling-priamo-given-fouryear-ban-for-doping-offence-1819798.html http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/general/others/cycling-priamo-given-fouryear-ban-for-doping-offence-1819798.html ]]> <p>Italian cyclist Matteo Priamo has been banned for four years for supplying doping products to a team-mate. </p> Others Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-union/international/bell-faces-up-to-daunting-puma-pack-1819797.html http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-union/international/bell-faces-up-to-daunting-puma-pack-1819797.html ]]> <p>John Wells, the England forwards coach, used the word "turgid" to describe some of the things he saw from his charges against Australia six days ago. Martin Johnson might have gone for "insipid" had he wanted to be equally blunt, but as is his wont, he stopped well short of overt criticism. But the manager did tacitly acknowledge that the red rose pack has been struggling with an aggression deficit – a subject he is likely to address behind closed doors ahead of tomorrow's meeting with Argentina at Twickenham. </p> International Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/general/rugby-league/hayne-switched-to-test-rookie-pairing-1819796.html http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/general/rugby-league/hayne-switched-to-test-rookie-pairing-1819796.html ]]> <p>Tony Smith has named an unchanged England team for the first time, in what could be his last game in charge. Smith has given a vote of confidence to the side that beat New Zealand last Saturday for the Gillette Four Nations final against Australia in Leeds tomorrow.</p> Rugby League Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/general/rugby-league/crabtree-is-the-big-daddy-now-1819795.html http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/general/rugby-league/crabtree-is-the-big-daddy-now-1819795.html ]]> <p>If Nikolai Valuev was, at least until last Saturday, "The Beast from the East", then Eorl Crabtree can claim to be the most notable of the BFGs from Kirklees.</p> Rugby League Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/racing/carberry-can-reign-in-firstday-deluge-1819794.html http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/racing/carberry-can-reign-in-firstday-deluge-1819794.html ]]> <p>So there might be a drop of rain about? Big deal. It cannot possibly be as vile as the third day of the meeting, two years ago, when they abandoned the bumper after hours of relentless, horizontal sleet. And of course some among the tweedy throng at Cheltenham today would find perverse satisfaction in their very discomfort, on the principle that when the effete get going, they go to Santa Anita.</p> Racing Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/gordon-brown-new-rules-can-make-our-immigration-system-tougher-and-fairer-1819753.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/gordon-brown-new-rules-can-make-our-immigration-system-tougher-and-fairer-1819753.html <p>We live in a fast-changing world – and government must change to meet the new challenges. Our immigration system is a very clear example.</p> Commentators Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/mary-dejevsky/mary-dejevsky-planning-law-as-seen-from-my-window-1819752.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/mary-dejevsky/mary-dejevsky-planning-law-as-seen-from-my-window-1819752.html <p>From my study window in our seventh-floor flat, I can see: red tiled roofs into the distance, red chimney pots on which pigeons and squawking seagulls compete for space, a grid of urban streets far below and lines of trees now almost shorn of their yellowed leaves. Straight ahead, I can just catch the tip of a garden square, which is sometimes bathed in sunsets of Götterdämmerung intensity, and on the far horizon loom the familiar, but long-cold, towers of Battersea power station. </p> Mary Dejevsky Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/ransom-by-david-malouf-1819465.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/ransom-by-david-malouf-1819465.html <p>David Malouf's book is born of war. He was first gripped by the stories of the eighth-century BC Iliad as a Brisbane schoolboy in 1943, living among sandbagged buildings and watching constant American troop movements north to the battles of the Pacific. He began this novel 60 years later, drawing on that ancient tale of war just a year or so after the destruction of the World Trade Centre.</p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/ayn-rand-can-two-new-biographies-unravel-the-mystery-of-the-mad-sad-heroine-of-the-american-right-1819464.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/ayn-rand-can-two-new-biographies-unravel-the-mystery-of-the-mad-sad-heroine-of-the-american-right-1819464.html <p>Ayn Rand is one of America's great mysteries. She was an amphetamine-addicted author of sub-Dan Brown potboilers, who in her spare time wrote torrents of praise for serial killers and the Bernie Madoff-style embezzlers of her day. She opposed democracy on the grounds that "the masses" - her readers - were "lice" and "parasites" who scarcely deserved to live. </p> Features Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/hard-rain-falling-by-don-carpenter-1819463.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/hard-rain-falling-by-don-carpenter-1819463.html <p> The New York Review Books list of resurrected clasics motors from stength to strength, and here it delivers an explosive find. </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/party-of-the-week-a-night-of-pop-art-for-rankin-and-friends-1819462.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/party-of-the-week-a-night-of-pop-art-for-rankin-and-friends-1819462.html ]]> <p>The singer Joss Stone, Duran Duran's Nick Rhodes, magazine editor Jefferson Hack and My Summer of Love actress Natalie Press were out in force on Monday night for the private view of Rankin's exhibition Destroy at London's Phillips de Pury Gallery. </p> Features Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/palestine-and-israel-by-avi-shlaimbr-one-state-two-states-by-benny-morris-1819461.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/palestine-and-israel-by-avi-shlaimbr-one-state-two-states-by-benny-morris-1819461.html ]]> <p>Avi Shlaim and Benny Morris are both pioneer "new historians" of Israel who challenged some of the country's most potent founding myths. Shlaim's classic The Iron Wall – the one book everyone should read for a concise history of Israel's relations with Arabs from 1947 - showed, among much else, how consistently Israel pursued the imperative of negotiating from military strength, and the diplomatic opportunities it missed in the process. Morris, in The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, became the first Israeli historian to drive, in the words of Shlaim himself in this book, "a coach and horses through the claim that the Palestinians left Palestine of their own accord or on orders from their leaders." </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/oxford-dictionary-of-the-bible-by-wrf-browning-1819460.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/oxford-dictionary-of-the-bible-by-wrf-browning-1819460.html <p> Snappy entries elucidate hazy Biblical events ranging from Naboth's vineyard, where Jezebel did the dirty, to the virgin birth: "Some modern theologians argue... if Jesus was miraculously provided with DNA by God, with no human ancestry, how did he have a human inheritance, of the house of David?" </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/book-of-a-lifetime-journal-of-a-novel-by-john-steinbeck-1819459.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/book-of-a-lifetime-journal-of-a-novel-by-john-steinbeck-1819459.html <p>John Steinbeck's Journal of a Novel is a book I've kept on every desk I've written at for the past 10 years. I've rarely opened it when I'm not working on a book, and never when I'm writing well. But on those days when the engine room of a first draft feels claustrophobic or static, when the words have turned brittle and the whole endeavour seems either pointless or ridiculous, that's when I'll reach again for this idiosyncratic one-sided correspondence which comes together to form a rare map of a literary mind at the point of creation.</p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/lee-valley-poems-by-yang-lian-1819458.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/lee-valley-poems-by-yang-lian-1819458.html <p> For the Chinese dissident poet Yang Lian, in transit since the repressions of 1989, Stoke Newington starts to become a truly "local" place "the fourth year you see the very last apple on the branch". </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/shelby-singleton-record-producer-who-unearthed-undiscovered-treasures-in-the-vaults-of-the-sun-label-1819725.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/shelby-singleton-record-producer-who-unearthed-undiscovered-treasures-in-the-vaults-of-the-sun-label-1819725.html <p>The record producer and label owner Shelby Singleton is associated with several American hits of the 1960s but he will be best remembered for his re-marketing of the Sun Records catalogue in Memphis. He admitted that he had no great musical talent, but he knew what record buyers wanted to hear. </p> Obituaries Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/qian-xuesen-scientist-and-pioneer-of-chinas-missile-and-space-programmes-1819724.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/qian-xuesen-scientist-and-pioneer-of-chinas-missile-and-space-programmes-1819724.html ]]> <p>Qian Xuesen was a rocket scientist who was regarded as the father of China's missile and space technology programme. After more than 20 years of research in the United States he was deported from his adopted country for alleged espionage and went on to help his homeland, China, develop the atomic bomb, enter the space race and become a super power.</p> Obituaries Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/bishop-werner-krusche-bishop-who-played-a-crucial-role-in-reconciling-the-two-halves-of-germany-1819723.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/bishop-werner-krusche-bishop-who-played-a-crucial-role-in-reconciling-the-two-halves-of-germany-1819723.html <p>Werner Krusche was a bishop in the East German Protestant Church who clashed with the ruling SED, Communists as he sought to gain concessions for Christians in the German Democratic Republic, but was eventually credited for his part in advancing Germany's re-unification.</p> Obituaries Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/under-the-dome-by-stephen-king-1819561.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/under-the-dome-by-stephen-king-1819561.html ]]> <p>Just as Dickens saw Victorian England as a family with the wrong members in control, so the US, in Stephen King's vast new state-of-the-nation novel, is a town with the wrong family in control. Obama may be in the White House, but for a lot of the voters in Chester's Mill, he isn't really their President. Real power is local, and rests in the three Selectmen, of whom one is an ineffectual yes-man, one addicted to pain-killers and the third Big Jim Rennie. </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/art-of-the-matter-richard-eyre-on-the-meaning-of-culture-1819476.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/art-of-the-matter-richard-eyre-on-the-meaning-of-culture-1819476.html ]]> <p> I grew up in a rural backwater miles away from any cinema, even farther from any theatre, in a house where the paintings were of horses and the books were about war. To borrow a phrase from Neil Kinnock, I was the first member of my family in a thousand generations to attend a university but, in case I give the impression that, like the Monty Python sketch, I used to have to get up out of the shoe box in the middle of the night and lick the road clean with my tongue, I should make it clear that my upbringing was in almost every other sense a highly privileged one. </p> Features Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/vitamin-ph-introduced-by-tj-demos-1819475.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/vitamin-ph-introduced-by-tj-demos-1819475.html <p> This survey of current photographs delineates the weird state of post-modern art – wildly diverse and personal, yet often bizarrely imitative. Skipping surrogates of Nan Goldin (nudity and scars) and Martin Parr (lurid close-up of iced buns), you encounter images that live on in the mind for their chilly resonance. </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/rupert-penryjones-its-nice-not-to-be-chasing-a-bad-guy-1819456.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/rupert-penryjones-its-nice-not-to-be-chasing-a-bad-guy-1819456.html ]]> <p>Rupert Penry-Jones, alias Adam Carter, the unflappable spy from Spooks, alias Richard Hannay, the unflappable and bounderish spy from last Christmas's 39 Steps remake, alias Donald Maclean, the unflappable, bounderish and real-life spy from the BBC drama Cambridge Spies – in short, television's most conspicuous undercover agent – is sitting stiffly in the Royal Court's bar trying not to be seen or heard by the gaggle of female pensioners having a pre-matinee lunch on the next table. He looks uncharacteristically unheroic today, in an outfit which subtly screams "rehearsing actor" – floppy tracksuit bottoms, innumerable, indefinable woolly layers and one of those heated, lavender-scented neck warmers draped delicately around his shoulders. He's about to open in The Priory, his first play since landing the career-rocket of a role in Spooks seven years ago, and his back has gone. "It always happens," he sighs. I nod sympathetically. A tricky on-set stunt? A hardcore gym session? "Stress," he winces and turns, painfully, pitifully even, to ask what the soup of the day is. "But it's nice not to be carrying a gun and chasing a bad guy, you know?"</p> Features Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/great-works/the-flea-1665-robert-hooke-1819454.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/great-works/the-flea-1665-robert-hooke-1819454.html ]]> <p>The traditional monster is a composite. The unknown is put together from pieces of the known. It is a work of imagination as defined by Thomas Hobbes: "Imagination being only of those things which have been formerly perceived by sense, either all at once, or by parts at several times", as when "from the sight of a man at one time, and of a horse at another, we conceive in our mind a centaur".</p> Great Works Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-eitingons-by-marykay-wilmers-1819452.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-eitingons-by-marykay-wilmers-1819452.html ]]> <p> Mary-Kay Wilmers has spent her professional life "obsessively attending to" other people's words. Now she has produced her own – also a life's work, or at least two decades', drawing on a century of family history. The family is her mother's, the Eitingons. The name is unusual – they were Jews from the Pale of Settlement – and so, it turns, out was the family. Extending from Moscow to New York to Vienna, the family intersects with some of the key moments of 20th-century history.</p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/the-diary-shantaram-film--lumiere-festival-tom-atkinson-hans-holbein-harold-evans-1819450.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/the-diary-shantaram-film--lumiere-festival-tom-atkinson-hans-holbein-harold-evans-1819450.html ]]> Features Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/observations-french-synth-star-pascal-arbez-produces-album-featuring-brigitte-the-virtual-voice-1819448.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/observations-french-synth-star-pascal-arbez-produces-album-featuring-brigitte-the-virtual-voice-1819448.html <p>Clasping an espresso at his management's London offices, the French synth star Pascal Arbez, better known to his acolytes as Vitalic (pronounced "vee-tal-ique"), shakes his head despondently. "All the time I am told that dance music is in danger, or even that it is dead," he says. "It's stupid. All you need to do is check the internet or go to a club or a festival and you can see how alive it is," he sighs. "But attitudes are beginning to change. Dance music has become stronger definitely. La Roux play electronic music and look what they have achieved. And I hear [the Dutch disc jockey] Tiësto has more fans than Madonna."</p> Features Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/the-barometer-four-tet-best-coast-wale-hot-chip-the-very-best-featuring-kano-steve-reich-1819446.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/the-barometer-four-tet-best-coast-wale-hot-chip-the-very-best-featuring-kano-steve-reich-1819446.html Features Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/cultural-life-ben-bradshaw-culture-secretary-1819447.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/cultural-life-ben-bradshaw-culture-secretary-1819447.html ]]> Features Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000