The Observer International Edition

7/25/2010: FRONT PAGE: Criminals could cut jail sentences by saying ‘sorry'

Tens of thousands of offenders may be able to reduce their sentences by making personal apologies to their victims, under plans for a “rehabilitation revolution” in the criminal justice system. Crispin Blunt, the prisons' minister, is considering the...

7/25/2010: FRONT PAGE: Former UN expert accuses Whitehall of Iraq war cover-up

A key witness to the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war has accused Whitehall of trying to silence embarrassing testimony undermining the case for the invasion. In today's Observer, Carne Ross, the UK's Iraq expert at the UN between 1997 and 2002,...

7/25/2010: FRONT PAGE: 20,000 girls in UK at risk from genital mutilation

Police and health professionals have warned that a growing number of female circumcisions are being carried out in Britain even though the practice is illegal. Experts estimate that between 500 and 2,000 UK schoolgirls face genital mutilation this...

7/25/2010: NEWS: We had sex, then she found out I was an Arab

Saber Kushour apologises as he asks his guests to move the plastic chairs on his breeze-block balcony a little closer to the door to his house. If he were to sit where they are now, he explains, the electronic tag attached to his ankle would set off an...

7/25/2010: NEWS: Hollywood eyes new Full Monty-style hit as story of British strikers hits chord in the US

Nervous, petite and a bit shy, Sally Hawkins is about to become one of Britain's most successful exports and to give the town of Dagenham an unexpected moment of international glory. The 34-year-old actress from south London has played starring...

7/25/2010: NEWS: PM seeks ‘enhanced relationship' with India

A £500m deal for BAE Systems to supply Hawk jet trainers is expected to be one of a string of high-profile contracts signed during the prime minister's trip to India this week. There is also likely to be a major cultural agreement involving...

7/25/2010: NEWS: How Britain's ‘deep state' is covering up the mistakes that led to Iraq war

I testified last week to the Chilcot inquiry. My experience demonstrates an emerging and dangerous problem with the process. This is not so much a problem with Sir John Chilcot and his panel, but rather with the government bureaucracy Britain's own...

7/25/2010: NEWS: Clegg starts tour of country to rebuild Lib Dem support

Nick Clegg is to hold public meetings across the country this summer to boost support for the Liberal Democrats, after the party plummeted to 13% in the polls. The move by the deputy prime minister comes after dire warnings that the party could be...

7/25/2010: NEWS: Ed Miliband wins backing of Unite union

Ed Miliband will receive a further boost to his campaign for the Labour leadership tomorrow when Unite, the largest trade union in the UK, declares its support for him. The union's national policy committee yesterday voted overwhelmingly in favour of...

7/25/2010: NEWS: Probation staff defend their care of Venables

Supervision of Jon Venables was intensified after he was arrested for affray in 2008, according to probation officers who have defended themselves against claims the child killer should have been recalled to prison long before his arrest for...

7/25/2010: NEWS: Cloistered nuns are Lady Gaga's new stablemates

A group of Benedictine nuns who live in complete seclusion in the South of France are set to become divas of pop after signing a deal with Universal Music, the leading record company behind Lady Gaga and Amy Winehouse. ouse. After a worldwide search...

7/25/2010: NEWS: Rage and fear on the streets of Arizona as immigrant law comes into force

JD Hayworth, a barnstorming Arizona Republican who is campaigning for the Senate, has strong opinions about his state's new law on illegal immigration. The law, known as SB1070 and due to come into effect this week, requires police to arrest suspected...

7/25/2010: NEWS: Taliban claim to have captured US troops

Afghan insurgents have captured two American soldiers south of Kabul, a Taliban official said. US statements offering a $20,000 (£13,000) reward for information leading to their safe release, were heard on local radio by a Reuters correspondent...

7/25/2010: NEWS: Dissident Iranians start to arrive after asylum offer

The German government is offering asylum to 50 Iranian dissidents who took part in protests after elections last year. An interior ministry spokesman said 12 have arrived and another is expected this week. Germany had planned to take in up to 20...

7/25/2010: NEWS: Uighur journalist jailed for 15 years over comments

A Chinese court sentenced a journalist from the minority Uighur community to 15 years in jail for critical writings and comments he made to foreign media after last year's ethnic riots in the western Xinjiang region, a friend said. Halaite Niyaze was...

7/25/2010: NEWS: Chávez breaks ties with Colombia over rebel claims

President Hugo Chávez severed relations with Colombia after Bogotá's envoy to the Organisation of American States claimed that Venezuela was harbouring 1,500 leftwing Colombian rebels. Chávez, a critic of Washington, said the Colombian charge was a...

7/25/2010: NEWS: As Pol Pot's executioner-in-chief awaits his fate, torture survivors hope for justice

Chum Mey walks slowly through the corridors of Tuol Sleng once a school, then a prison, now a museum past thousands of black-and-white photographs, the unsmiling portraits of the Khmer Rouge's victims in this place. He stops at faces he recognises,...

7/25/2010: NEWS: Hero scientist sacrificed own life to save colleagues

A British academic has helped to uncover the truth behind the execution of one of Indonesia's greatest scientists by the country's Japanese occupiers. Achmad Mochtar was not only a martyr for his country and profession, Kevin Baird has discovered, he...

7/25/2010: NEWS: Berlusconi row over university's offer to daughter

It was a scene to warm the heart: a delighted student in mortar board and gown had just heard that she had graduated with 110 e lode (the equivalent in Italy of a starred first-class degree). In the front row of the audience, her father burst into...

7/25/2010: NEWS: Gay people at greater risk from drug misuse

Gay men and lesbians are far more likely to put their health at risk from drug misuse than heterosexuals, according to a Home Office-funded report that suggests there is an urgent need to rethink how addiction agencies and doctors support minority...

7/25/2010: NEWS: Private jail punishment manual ‘may breach law'

The body in charge of monitoring human rights in Britain has warned the government that it could be contravening European law by approving restraint and self-defence measures against children in privately run jails. The Equality and Human Rights...

7/25/2010: NEWS: Tenants ‘trapped' by lack of affordable homes

One in eight social housing tenants are trapped in properties away from their families or work opportunities, a report suggests. A shortage of affordable homes means people who want to move cannot, according to housing group Circle Anglia, which is...

7/25/2010: NEWS: Ponds project to save 80 threatened species

Nearly 200 ponds have been created and dozens more restored to help protect species such as the tadpole shrimp and one-grooved diving beetle. The Environment Agency said 80 protected species in Britain relied on freshwater ponds for survival, but over...

7/25/2010: NEWS: Public back tougher rules on tobacco sales, poll says

Proposed bans on displays of tobacco products in shops and cigarette machines in pubs have the public's support, a new poll says. The bans are due to start next year as part of the 2009 Health Act, passed by the previous government, but the coalition...

7/25/2010: NEWS: Tory MP is warned over snub to veiled women

A Conservative MP who said that he would refuse face-to-face meetings with constituents who wore full-face veils has been warned that he could face legal action. Philip Hollobone, MP for Kettering, who is trying to introduce a bill to ban the burqa,...

7/25/2010: NEWS: Images of monarchy go online in technology drive

Hundreds of rarely seen pictures of the royal family have been posted on to the photo website Flickr after Buckingham Palace opened an account with the popular service. Images showing recent royal events and archive pictures of the Queen, Prince of...

7/25/2010: NEWS: Never mind the rom-com. It's the rom-bomb I love

Two new films out this week: Knight and Day , starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, and rom-com, Rebound , starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Justin Bartha. In both the couples are said to exude the raging sexual chemistry of urinal cakes. Arguably...

7/25/2010: NEWS: It's James's family, not just his killer, who need help

Two significant people featured in the sentencing at the Old Bailey of Jon Venables last week. The first, obviously, was Venables, appearing via video link for his own safety, receiving two years for downloading and distributing indecent images of...

7/25/2010: NEWS: Kids today don't even fail properly

Cambridge University have criticised coalition plans to make A-levels more “traditional”, but there's yet more on Michael Gove's plate. With A-levels, he's going to have to deal with teenagers. There are superb parents out there who strive to give...

7/25/2010: NEWS: Labour wasted £300m on private health, say Tories

The decision by Labour to bring private providers into the NHS wasted hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money, according to Andrew Lansley, the Conservative health secretary. The former government refused to disclose the amounts paid for...

7/25/2010: NEWS: Stem cell cure hope for rare heart disease

Doctors are investigating whether patients with an irreversible heart condition can prolong their lives by having stem cells taken from their hip and injected into the damaged organ. Experts at the Barts and the London Heart Attack Centre hope their...

7/25/2010: NEWS: Coogan and Brydon reunited... to do lunch

Michael Winterbottom, the British film director who made Welcome to Sarajevo and 24 Hour Party People and was criticised for his controversial 9 Songs and this summer's The Killer Inside Me has turned to English food for his next project. The...

7/25/2010: IN FOCUS: Horror of genital mutilation stalks young British girls

Like any 12-year-old, Jamelia was excited at the prospect of a plane journey and a long summer holiday in the sun. An avid reader, she had filled her suitcases with books and was reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban when her mother came for...

7/25/2010: IN FOCUS: ‘Female mutilation is a crime which seeks justice'

“I told my wife that if she had my girls circumcised I would kill her but she did it anyway and hoped I wouldn't find out because she hadn't taken them out of the country. I knew as soon as I looked into my daughters' eyes, the light had gone out. The...

7/25/2010: IN FOCUS: I have watched a classroom revolution during my lifetime's work as a teacher

Alan Hemsworth walked into King James's School in Knaresborough, Yorkshire, in September 1971 to begin a career as a German teacher. He was 23. Margaret Thatcher was education secretary. The old system of grammar schools and secondary moderns was in...

7/25/2010: IN FOCUS: Cameron reaches out to the power and wealth of New India as days of Raj recede

As his jet taxis over to the high-security VIP stand on arrival in Delhi this week the first thing David Cameron will see will be the recently opened Terminal Three building at the Indira Gandhi International Airport, a vast futuristic slab of steel...

7/25/2010: FIRST PERSON: My friend the Mad Yank was good fun. Now I know he's a killer

‘Seemed like a normal guy to me.” That's what the neighbours often say, isn't it? “He was pretty quiet. Kept himself to himself.” Last week, I walked past the house in Brighton where police are digging for victims of the serial killer Peter Tobin. I...

7/25/2010: THE OBSERVER PROFILE: Conrad Black and Barbara Amiel They're back proud and unbowed

The former newspaper proprietor Conrad Black used to arrive at his editors' offices in a chauffeur-driven RollsRoyce. As the chairman of Hollinger International, he owned an impressive portfolio of publications including the Daily Telegraph, the...

7/25/2010: COMMENT: Stick up for the BBC. It's the last bulwark against rule by the mob

Ministers under political pressure and their spin doctors usually find it hard to resist a jibe at media interviewers, especially if they are from the BBC. To ask hard questions, they reason, is to betray an anti-government bias. Alastair Campbell...

7/25/2010: COMMENT: Frankly, this is getting beyond a joke

This little row has been a few things, but one of the many things it hasn't been is funny. Keith Chegwin has been castigated for posting, on Twitter, unacknowledged jokes. Most of them are simple one-liners “Stone the crows, I'm in trouble with the...

7/25/2010: COMMENT: We must not abandon our principles abroad

David Cameron was not responsible for the early release from prison of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber. Nor is he to blame for the release of millions of tonnes of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. But the two issues dominated the prime...

7/25/2010: COMMENT: There must be prosecutions to stamp out this cruel practice

In 1985 the practice of female circumcision or female genital mutilation was outlawed in Britain. Since 2003 it has also been illegal to take girls out of the country to have them “cut” abroad, usually in East Africa. It is a brutal, invasive,...

7/25/2010: COMMENT: Our leaders shouldn't threaten the BBC. Let it sort itself out

Many British people feel profound affection for the BBC; very few (outside of rival media organisations) feel passionate dislike of it; most are indifferent or vaguely appreciative. So it is peculiar how much political energy governments spend fretting...

7/25/2010: COMMENT: It's still all smiles at the top, but there's rumbling down below

As a gesture to austere times, the cabinet travelled to Chequers on Friday not in individual ministerial limousines, but on a coach. There were other features of the awayday at the prime minister's rural retreat which gave it something of the...

7/25/2010: COMMENT: Labour must come clean about Iraq and spurn its Blairite legacy

Being Tony Blair is not so hard. This time last year I had the enlightening experience of playing him for an hour while helping a friend prepare for an interview with him on stage in New York. We assembled a list of questions after reading and watching...

7/25/2010: COMMENT: Eva Wiseman This virtual horror is all too real

Spider Robinson is a science fiction author, and it's his words that open the short film Mob by 25-year-old “geek comedian” Tom Scott. “The whole world turns upside down in 10 years,” the quote from 1977 reads, “but you turn upside down with it.” This...

7/25/2010: COMMENT: The thing is, Dave, giving is an art. But not that sort of art

Hull has been commemorating the 25th anniversary of the death of the poet Philip Larkin with, among other things, the erection of 40 decorative toads, each three feet high. Why would they do that? Well, animal-wise, Larkin's poems gave Hull very little...

7/25/2010: COMMENT: No one wins when brother fights brother

And the Lord said unto Cain: “Where is Abel thy brother?” And he said: “I know not. Am I my brother's keeper?” And he said: “What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.” Like David and Ed Miliband, I come from...

7/25/2010: COMMENT: Prison manual raises serious human rights concerns

Your report, “Revealed: brutal guide to punishing jailed youths” (News, last week) raises very serious human rights concerns over the use of restraint techniques in secure training centres. The Equality and Human Rights Commission believes that, if the...

7/25/2010: COMMENT: Dr Gerry Mander: the therapist the stars trust

Dear Dr Mander I always wanted to be a politician, but as things turned out I became an actor instead. My career didn't take off at first. I did some fringe stuff in Brussels. For a few years I did the annual “conference season”, performing on stage...

7/25/2010: SEVEN DAYS: Power to the people, Cameron style

The phrase has been bandied about since the Conservatives first raised it in the middle of the election campaign. Now, the “big society”, David Cameron's key vision for the future, has been officially launched. Cameron's plan to redistribute...

7/25/2010: SEVEN DAYS: ‘In government, each slip of the tongue has consequences'

On Tuesday parliament will cease for the summer. For ministers, exhausted by the new demands of high office, it will be a relief. The coalition drove out of the showroom shiny and new, dazzling everyone with its special features. Eleven weeks later, it...

7/25/2010: SEVEN DAYS: British cinemas have 174m good reasons to thank 3D technology

The UK Film Council published its analysis of British cinema attendance last week, stating that 2009 was the year cinema “bucked the recession” and announcing that the 174 million bums-on-seats was the highest figure since 2002, up 6% on the previous...

7/25/2010: SEVEN DAYS: HIV rates double in over-50s as sexual behaviour changes

Sex doesn't end at 50 whatever teenagers assume and neither does the risk of HIV infection. Research published last week at the International Aids conference in Vienna by the UK's Health Protection Agency shows that HIV rates are increasing among...

7/25/2010: SEVEN DAYS: Alex Salmond spares forgetful US Senate another painful home defeat

Senator John Kerry ought to be more careful about what he wishes for. The chair of the US Senate's foreign relations committee wants Alex Salmond to appear at a hearing this week into the release of the only man convicted of the Lockerbie...

7/25/2010: SEVEN DAYS: Bottom celebrity gear at the Beeb

Things are different for film stars visiting our shores with a blockbuster to plug this summer. Instead of Jonathan Ross and his house band, the BBC now only offers three slightly shabby blokes. Worse, instead of a cheerful hour lit by the responsive...

7/25/2010: SEVEN DAYS: You wait ages for a Miu Miu dress, then three arrive at once

It's reassuring to discover that style cock-ups happen even in fashion's highest echelons. Last week Vogue, Elle and American magazine W experienced the nightmare that is turning up to the party in the same outfit when all had covers featuring the same...

7/25/2010: SEVEN DAYS: The exit strategy is under way but it cannot look like failure

On the eve of the annihilation of his garrison at Dien Bien Phu in May 1954, Brigadier General Christian de la Croix de Castries spoke to his commanding general in Hanoi a final time before smashing his radio. “You are going to be submerged,” de...

7/25/2010: SEVEN DAYS: A lying video, a snarling Fox and a gutless White House

It is a tried and tested technique. A story surfaces on an obscure, journalistically dubious, conservative website. It spreads to Fox News who churn out their standard-issue anti-liberal outrage. Then, in an effort to catch up, the rest of the...

7/25/2010: SEVEN DAYS: Fidel's Potbelly amigo finds brother Raúl is not so friendly

A globe-trotting guerrilla befriends a dictator, goes into business and makes a fortune but ends up accused of corruption and betrayal. How the story ends remains unclear, but Max Marambio's rise and apparent fall could already fill several novels ...

7/25/2010: BUSINESS: BP acquits itself of sole blame for gulf spill after internal inquiry

BP will this week reveal that it has cleared itself of gross negligence after an internal inquiry into the causes of the Deepwater Horizon explosion. The company believes evidence will emerge of the role of other oil companies and contractors on the...

7/25/2010: BUSINESS: Avatar protest against miner

Controversial mining company Vedanta faces more protests at its annual shareholder meeting this week from campaigners who liken it to the evil multinational in the film Avatar. Campaign group Survival International has hired make-up artists to paint...

7/25/2010: BUSINESS: Bus groups face £200m loss if coalition axes fuel subsidy

Four of Britain's biggest bus companies could lose more than £200m in profits under plans to axe public spending on transport. The government is considering scrapping a scheme that allows bus operators to reclaim around 80% of what they pay in fuel...

7/25/2010: BUSINESS: British Gas customers to lose out after profits soar

British Gas is expected to reject customers' demands that it cut its prices, despite the fact that this week it will announce that profits have almost doubled in the first six months of the year. Parent company Centrica is forecast to report the huge...

7/25/2010: BUSINESS: Seven more US banks collapse on day of Europe's stress tests

More than 100 banks in the US have now collapsed so far this year after another seven were taken over by regulators late on Friday the same day that seven European banks failed a financial health check. With rising bad debts tied to commercial and...

7/25/2010: BUSINESS: Austerity's bitter pill will leave the UK convalescent for years to come

It was a bright, sunny day when 19 senior executives, each representing one of the government's biggest suppliers, trooped into Admiralty House off Whitehall to meet the Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude. They left, three hours later, unable to...

7/25/2010: BUSINESS: Spectre of the double dip haunts uneasy US

Acrippled housing market. Stubbornly high levels of unemployment. Falling consumer confidence. Slower growth in industrial production. No wonder Ben Bernanke, the world's most powerful central banker, appeared a worried man in his testimony to Congress...

7/25/2010: BUSINESS: In a new world order, Cameron is right to pin his hopes on special relationship with India

What do Britain's richest man, our largest manufacturer, and the biggest listing on the London Stock Exchange in the last two years have in common? They're Indian. Multibillionaire Lakshmi Mittal, who leads the rich list, is the scion of a wealthy...

7/25/2010: BUSINESS: Legacy of Lady Thatcher hangs over the chancellor

Ihave been so critical of George Osborne recently that it seems only fair to give credit to our new chancellor where credit is due. And, let's face it, there is not a lot of credit about. In many ways this government gives the impression of wanting to...

7/25/2010: BUSINESS: Why RBS should be painted green

The coalition has promised to reform the banks, and it also wants to be the greenest government ever. Laudable goals and research published tomorrow by former PricewaterhouseCoopers consultant James Leaton and economist Howard Reed suggests ministers...

7/25/2010: BUSINESS: The BBC wants to have breakfast in Salford. What a dog's dinner

Forget BBC salaries, pensions and perks for a moment. All such stuff whipped up by critics with an agenda of their own grows weary in the repetition. Let's concentrate instead on high principle, strategy, bricks and mortar. Ah! Now there's a proper...

7/25/2010: BUSINESS: The Sun, ITV, Five… but that's not what Desmond is really shopping for

There is rather a lot of Mr Richard Desmond about these days. He'd like to buy the Sun. He'd like to buy ITV. He is buying Channel Five. “I've got so much money, it's ridiculous,” he confides to the Independent. Oh! “and I'd like to do a big deal… I...

7/25/2010: BUSINESS: Free speech will have its day in court

The Senate passed it last week. House of Representatives approval is almost a formality. Whereupon, America will have a law in place that prohibits US courts from enforcing foreign libel judgments if they don't match First Amendment freedoms. “In other...

7/25/2010: BUSINESS: One man who's really in Conrad's black books

Why on Earth indeed, how on Earth is a Conrad Black released from Florida clink supposed to head for the UK and start suing people he thinks did him wrong, as has been suggested? That notion overlooks more trials, more suits, and more raids on a...

7/25/2010: BUSINESS: A wider base. Oh, but not that wide

David Smith, the excellent economics commentator of the Sunday Times, is on dangerous ground as he praises an OECD report on a Britain full of “good ideas”, including “the widening of the VAT base”. Surely he can't be thinking of slapping VAT on...

7/25/2010: CASH: Can one really live as cheaply as two? How to cut the costs

Young, free and single is a description that conjures up thoughts of a happy-golucky, worry-free lifestyle. But while living alone might come with its advantages such as exclusive rights to the duvet the financial disadvantages can be...

7/25/2010: CASH: Bill of £720 for ‘lost deeds' but Lloyds Bank had them all the time

My dad had a stroke and needed confirmation that he owned his house before the local authority would fit a stair lift. He was confused but thought the deeds were held at Lloyds Bank. My sister visited the branch but was told they were not there. We...

7/25/2010: AGENDA: ‘People want to be moved in new ways'

This, actually, is what the Proms are all about. Not the tradition yes, OK, the tradition, if you must, continuity's such a favourite paunchy uncle but the quiet way in which genuinely young people excite genuinely old people with genuinely new...

7/25/2010: AGENDA: ON MY RADAR

Comedian Laura Solon, 31, began her career as a stand-up before settling into character comedy. She won the Perrier comedy award aged 26 for her first solo Edinburgh show Kopfraper's Syndrome: One Man and his Incredible Mind , becoming only the second...

7/25/2010: AGENDA: Books

Willard Price I read all the Willard Price books when I was eight and revisited them recently for inspiration for my new show. I felt very strongly that to be one of two brothers going around the world capturing animals for their father's zoo must be...

7/25/2010: AGENDA: Film

Wall Street I wanted to watch Wall Street 2 and then realised I hadn't watched the first one. For me its success rests on the combination of Michael Douglas's hair and Charlie Sheen's youthful cheeks. And Dr Cox from Scrubs is in it but looks exactly...

7/25/2010: AGENDA: Music

Maxinquaye by Tricky I've been having something of a 90s revival going on involving Massive Attack and Tricky recently. Calming albums that remind me of lazy summers. I put Maxinquaye on after next-door's cat was sick on our kitchen floor and, somehow,...

7/25/2010: AGENDA: Architecture

Natural History Museum, Tring They say: “a fascinating range of animals collected by Lionel Walter Rothschild”. I say an amazing Victorian palace of death. It's the stuffed version of the animal kingdom. And they have two fleas dressed as Mexican...

7/25/2010: AGENDA: Nightlife

The Magic Castle This is a private members magicians' club in Los Angeles. It's a castle with eight bars so you can get drunk near wizards. And there's a huge owl on the side of the building. I don't just want to go, I need to go. But first I have to...

7/25/2010: AGENDA: TV

Modern Family My favourite new US comedy after 30 Rock . It's a masterpiece of silliness and subtlety. The writing is superb, the performances are beautifully natural and it proves that mainstream doesn't have to be a pejorative word in comedy.

7/25/2010: PEOPLE AGENDA: Will Gompertz

When you were appointed by the BBC last year, much was made of the fact that you had no reporting experience. Did the controversy bother you? No. It was slightly weird. A newspaper doorstepped me, which I thought was just tough on the kids [Gompertz...

7/25/2010: PEOPLE AGENDA: ART

“Ask and the universe will provide,” or hippy-dippy words to that effect, is a phrase oft-cited by many positive-thinking gurus. Still, when street artist Ben Eine (right, real name Ben Flynn) followed owed up our interview about ut his alphabet street...

7/25/2010: THE COLUMN AGENDA: If Britain decides to ban the burqa then I might just start wearing one

Tattoos and burqas are all the rage. One in five of us now has a tattoo and there are enough burqas around to invoke talk of banning them. Some people, presumably, sport both but they're difficult to identify without causing an embarrassing scuffle....

7/25/2010: THE COLUMN AGENDA: FROM THE ARCHIVE

If I had to describe Queen in a word it would be “ambitious”. The statistics pile up as the cash register tolls: 16 top ten hits in the UK ding! Hits in 50 countries ding! Over 80 million records sold worldwide ding! Queen were signed to EMI in...

7/25/2010: COVER STORY: mSteamrdoursiets

Sitting with Michael Munn, biographer to the stars, in a somewhat bleak pub near his home in Sudbury, Suffolk, I can't get out of my head that classic Pete 'n' Dud sketch in which the flat-capped Peter Cook reveals to Dudley Moore the problems he is...

7/25/2010: DISCOVER PSYCOLOGY: My bright idea We don't see as much as we think we do

Before reading any further, you are advised to visit the website for The Invisible Gorilla (newly published by HarperCollins) at theinvisiblegorilla.com. There you will find the video of the experiment the psychologists Daniel Simons and Christopher...

7/25/2010: CRITICS: Welcome to the working week

It's a shame David Cameron went to America last week. For many reasons, including the fact that he got to kick Scotland again, but chief among them the fact that he couldn't thus sit down with Mr Clegg on Tuesday night to watch The Fairy Jobmother ....

7/25/2010: FILM: She's cute, but wait till she's older…

Back in 1954 the Austrian social thinker Robert Jungk wrote a bestselling futurological study, the title of which, Tomorrow is Already Here , predicted the way science fact would be constantly breathing down the neck of science fiction as the 20th...

7/25/2010: FILM: Call that a giant scorpion…

At the London Film Museum on the South Bank there's a charming exhibition (running till June 2011) of the work of Ray Harryhausen, who recently celebrated his 90th birthday. A pioneer of the “dynamation” process through which stop-motion models could...

7/25/2010: POP: I'll have what she's having…

Imagine a gig a proper gig where everyone gets in for free. Now imagine an event where the fabled guest list (a bit of an oxymoron, granted, when everyone is getting in for free) is not a grubby, well-thumbed wodge of paper, but a shiny, box-fresh...

7/25/2010: POP: Paul Morley on music

Staff Benda Bilili, singing at the top of their voices about a harsh, strange world, play a joyously demented rowdy message music that they describe as rumbablues. If I filed my record collection alphabetically they'd be between Squarepusher and the...

7/25/2010: BOOKS: More clout than the Booker…

You can almost feel the smarm in Richard Madeley's voice. “We're thrilled that the Richard and Judy name is once again associated with books.” WH Smith announced last month that it is joining forces with daytime TV veterans Richard Madeley and Judy...

7/25/2010: BOOKS: A big idea that's not quite on the money

Anatole Kaletsky sometimes seems like the Stephen Hawking of economics. No problem, however deep, can faze him. No situation he finds is beyond solution. He goes wisely, lucidly, above all confidently where no experts have gone before. You know...

7/25/2010: BOOKS: Fairways to heaven or hell

Although John Feinstein has shown himself to be an accomplished chronicler of many sports, it is for his books about golf that he is best known. His work, like that of the best American sports writers, is richly detailed and emotionally articulate, and...

7/25/2010: BOOKS: Sparks fly when electricity is the enemy

New York has suffered its fair share of fictional terrorist threats, but in this ninth outing from Jeffery Deaver's quadriplegic detective Lincoln Rhyme, it's Manhattan's electricity grid that is under attack. Metal elevators become death traps, a...

7/25/2010: BOOKS: The bank robber's ultimate guide to going straight

Say what you like about the shortcomings of prison, but it has produced some wonderful writing. Indeed the combination of extreme experience, a hidden world and enforced isolation might almost be described as the perfect conditions for exceptional...

7/25/2010: BOOKS: Will this defection be the start of a stampede?

The battle for the ownership of the book is still being fought on several fronts. It's a confusing scene, hard to interpret. Depending on where you look, through the fog of IT innovation, there are either white flags or fluttering standards of...

7/25/2010: BOOKS: Plenty more fish in the sea? Codswallop

A few years ago, as part of a journalistic assignment, I was crossing the North Sea by nuclear submarine, and just before I was put ashore on the west coast of Scotland, the vessel voided its waste tanks into the waters of the inlet, along whose...

7/25/2010: BOOKS: Agatha and a mysterious case of character assassination

There is a literary critic in America, Dale Peck, whose reviews are so brutal and precise that his surname has become synonymous with a savaging. After reading Duchess of Death, Richard Hack's biography of Agatha Christie, I can't help but wonder...

7/25/2010: BOOKS: First-rate tale of ill-fated travels

Isaiah Berlin famously distinguished between the fox, which knows many things, and the hedgehog, which knows one big thing. A similar dichotomy can be applied to novels: while some attempt lots of things simultaneously, others pursue a single course....

7/25/2010: SPORT: Harbinger of zoom stuns Ascot with epic victory

Grundy versus Bustino it was not. The speculation ahead of yesterday's King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes had imagined a duel up the straight between Workforce, the Derby winner, and his stablemate Harbinger. Instead, Olivier Peslier had time to...

7/25/2010: SPORT: O'Brien plans a Glorious solution to Sussex quest

Goodwood is as splendid and memorable a setting for a track as any the racing world can offer, but there will still be punters leaving the enclosures on Saturday night who cannot wait to shake the Sussex dust from their shoes. No day on the Downs is...

7/25/2010: SPORT: Pakistan stagger over the line to win thriller

Forty needed with seven wickets remaining, but it was no formality. One section of the Western Stand was crammed with Pakistan supporters, who shifted nervously in their seats in between cheering the odd boundary with rare vigour and relief. In the...

7/25/2010: SPORT: Baby-faced champion with a head for heights

In Bramhope, a small village in Yorkshire, four students share a house. The village has a shop, a pub, a church and a chippy. Out of those four establishments the young men regularly frequent three. Bramhope is surrounded by beautiful countryside. It...

7/25/2010: SPORT: Ennis stays focused on Europe as planet London looms large

On Tuesday, with two years to go until the London Olympic Games, Britain's athletics team will step on to the Barcelona track built for the 1992 Olympics, the scene of Linford Christie's and Sally Gunnell's gold medal wins and compete in the...

7/25/2010: SPORT: DELIVERING DREAMS OF McGRATH...

On the last day of the school year, with kids all over our neighbourhood making the blissful walk home for the start of the summer holidays, it feels natural to sit under a leafy tree in my garden with a 6ft 8in Test match fast bowler. Steven Finn,...

7/25/2010: SPORT: The Aussie who bowled me over

With a Test career starting in 1993 and spanning 14 years, Glenn McGrath has always been regarded as a batsman's worst nightmare, ever since he first graced the field against New Zealand all those years ago. He has come to epitomise the very essence of...

7/25/2010: SPORT: England must be wary of winning band of exiles

Suddenly the Trent Bridge Test, which begins on Thursday, has a bit of spice. England will not be playing a ramshackle band of exiles rudderless in a foreign land. They will be playing the conquerors of mighty Australia. Pakistan have just played four...

7/25/2010: SPORT: London's legacy at the crossroads

Choose London today,” Seb Coe urged the executive of the International Olympic Committee as they were about to vote on the host venue for the 2012 Games, “and you send a clear message to the youth of the world. It is a decision about which city will...

7/25/2010: SPORT: Genius of Muralitharan has changed cricket we will not see his like again

Muttiah Muralitharan has revolutionised cricket with his bowling. His doosra deliveries, which he first bowled in Tests in 1997, have become part of the game's make-up, along with reverse swing and switch hitting. Though he was not the first to bowl...

7/25/2010: SPORT: Olympic t tickets will be expensive but the experience alone offff ers value for money

In the early part of this week you will be bombarded with newspaper reports, television and radio broadcasts, and online news about London 2012. Michael Johnson will run on the track at the main stadium, Sir Chris Hoy will pedal away in the velodrome,...

7/25/2010: SPORT: Sepp's legacy and why oiks have no place in tennis

Spinning the Jabulani Last week's piece on Fifa in South Africa ( Planet Sport) reported that workers making Jabulani balls are paid less than £1.85 a day. So no doubt those workers will have been as moved as I was by the other Jabulani news last...

7/25/2010: SPORT: Football's forgotten few

Petr Cech is on his high horse and he is urging it into a gallop. “It is the most stupid rule I have seen in my life,” the Chelsea goalkeeper says. “If somebody has a brain, they have to change it, it's as simple as that. For me, it is...

7/25/2010: SPORT: Vieira admits City's wealth spurs on rivals

Patrick Vieira believes Manchester City's lavish spending will motivate opponents to want to beat them “for all the wrong reasons” next season and that Roberto Mancini's side must learn to thrive amid the animosity. City are close to breaking the...

7/25/2010: SPORT: Hodgson warns of tough times for Liverpool

August is still a week away and Roy Hodgson has yet to oversee his first competitive game at Anfield, but Liverpool's new manager is already talking darkly of burn-out and “unbelievably difficult” challenges ahead, writes Louise Taylor. The first...

7/25/2010: SPORT: Giteau gets kick out of Springboks

South Africa's continued indiscipline and failure to adapt to the change in the way the breakdown is refereed contributed to their third heavy defeat in the TriNations in as many weeks. The champions, still looking for their first point, have little...

7/25/2010: SPORT: Carvalho claims release deal with Chelsea

Ricardo Carvalho has claimed he has an agreement with Chelsea that will allow him to leave Stamford Bridge this summer, and says he hopes to follow José Mourinho to Real Madrid. “If there was a possibility to sign for Madrid, I would go there right...

7/25/2010: SPORT: Contador holds off Schleck to close in on title

After more than 2,000 miles of racing over the past three weeks, exhaustion finally caught up with Andy Schleck yesterday. For almost exactly half of the penultimate stage of the 2010 Tour de France, a 52km time trial through the vineyards from...

7/25/2010: SPORT: Mortality marks the end of Armstrong's second coming

The young American lay on his narrow bunk in a scruffy ski-station hotel with pain in his legs and a dull anger in his eyes. Two days earlier, in the flat lands of northern France, he had been pretty pleased with himself when he became the youngest...

7/25/2010: SPORT: Vettel takes pole in thrilling home run

Sebastian Vettel claimed a stunning pole position for his home grand prix, fending off the resurgent Ferrari of Fernando Alonso by just two one-thousandths of a second. The front-row pair were almost half a second clear of Alonso's team-mate Felipe...