The Saturday Miscellany: Heathers vs Mean Girls; Open Farm Sunday; Marc Chagall; Curiousa & Curiousa

CULTURE CLASH: HIGH-SCHOOL MOVIES

Heathers vs Mean Girls

By Holly Williams

Teen movies don't have to be dumb, as the 1989 black comedy Heathers proved. Winona Ryder's whip-smart Veronica was popular girl-turned-murderess; while the shoulder pads and perms may have dated, the teen-speak dialogue was sophisticated, cynical and still crackles today.

2004's Mean Girls had sharp brains behind it, too: Tina Fey penned the stinging script, which followed a maths-nerd who infiltrates the cool clique, The Plastics. It was the high-point of Lindsay Lohan's career, and a knowing take on the genre – although it does succumb to the urge for a redemptive ending.

Heathers isn't entirely immune from that either, but Winona does light a final fag off her boyfriend's suicide bomb explosion… so, pretty dark.

The Winner: Heathers

THE DELETED EMAILS OF...DAN BROWN (AS READ BY JOHN WALSH)

From: dandavinci@gmail.com
To: tomhanks@hcmanagement.com
Sent: 2 June 2013
Subject: discovery!!!!

Hollywood A-lister Tom Hanks you will not BELIEVE this. In my emails this morning, 2 June 2013, at 10.06am, was an AMAZING document saying "Ever thought how Manuka Honey could change your life? Try our new $14.95 jar." Don't you SEE? It's a sign, like an INVITATION to a secret society. Manuka is an anagram of Kumana, a hybrid of kumquat and banana – fruits sacred to the Knights Templars and their rivals the Rosicrucians, whose leader Magnus the Sturdy was murdered in 1495 (see the price?) by sinister knight, Olaf Baggyarse, whose son Hommlet impregnated a descendant of St Augustine, and their offspring, I have it on good AUTHORITY, was Shakespeare!

So in the movie, I want YOU to play…

Hang on. My wife thinks it's spam. But spam is an old Norse word meaning… Oh forget it. Dan

INSTANT ETHICS

By Ellen E Jones

Dear Ellen

Q. My favourite singer was arrested for assaulting his girlfriend. Do I boycott his new album?

A. Join the campaign to have artists' crimes put on product packaging, like health warnings on cigarettes. Buy it, if you still want to, but donate twice the cost of the album to Women's Aid.

@msellenejones

RECOMMENDED

By Charlie Cooper

Do

Find out where your food comes from as farms around the country welcome guests for Open Farm Sunday, 9 June, farmsunday.org

See

A new exhibition at Tate Liverpool showcases the works of Russian modernist master Marc Chagall, 8 June to 6 October, tate.org.uk

Buy

The lighting specialists Curiousa & Curiousa have lit up Harvey Nichols and the Hayward Gallery, but also do great pieces for the home. Curiousaandcuriousa.co.uk

INDY INDEX

By Charlie Cooper

- By the end of 2013 there will 6.84bn mobile phone subscriptions

- In Europe, there are 126 mobile phones to every 100 people

- In Africa, there are 63 mobile phones for every 100 people

- 92 per cent of adults in the UK own a mobile phone

- The first commercial mobile phone, the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X, released in 1984, weighed 800g and cost $3,995

- Apple’s iPhone 5, launched in 2012, weighs 112g and costs $199 (in the UK it  costs £529)

- 50bn apps have now been downloaded from Apple’s app store

- Brandon Ashmore from Ohio, who downloaded the 50 billionth app, was awarded a $10,000 Apple gift card

- Between now and 2020, e-waste (phones, computers, etc) will amount to 12 million tonnes in the UK

- In that 12 million tonnes will be precious metals with an estimated value of £7bn

Sources:

ICT Facts and Figures 2013, International Telecoms Union

ICT Facts and Figures 2013, International Telecoms Union

Ofcom Facts and figures, Ofcom

ICT Facts and Figures 2013, International Telecoms Union

Motorola Milestones: The Motorola DynaTAC, the world’s first commercial handheld cellular phone, Motorola

Apple

Apple

Facts and figures, WRAP

Facts and figures, WRAP