Lockdown has prompted many readers to plant flowerbeds and grow vegetables in their neglected front gardens – while smaller spaces have benefited from a proliferation of potsThe garden is long and thin, sunny but exposed to the wind. To make the most of the space we used pots and containers and filled them with a mix of annuals and perennials. In the ground we planted ammi majus, fennel, thalictrum and gaura to create a delicate feathery look, and in the pots we went for cosmos, zinnia, dahlias and hollyhocks to create a cottage garden feel. We also plant with pollinators in mind, putting in flowers such as viper’s bugloss. Paul Collins, retired, Bournemouth Continue reading...
Marie-Louise and René Glémarec, 86 and 87, caused storm at Paris fashion week in gender-neutral clothesLast month Jane Fonda set the internet ablaze with her Harper’s Bazaar cover in a sequined body-con Ralph Lauren dress, Dolly Parton inspired a cold-shoulder fashion trend with her vaccination video, and Joan Collins’s Instagram has been instructional on how to do lockdown in fabulous style.The latest “granfluencers” are Marie-Louise and René Glémarec, 86 and 87 respectively, who went viral after appearing at the last physical Paris fashion week dressed in the punk-inspired, gender-neutral clothes made by their grandson Florentin Glémarec for his label EGONlab, which he runs with partner Kévin Nompeix. Continue reading...
The medical staff had never seen anything like it. They told us the chances were one in 50 millionThe day I gave birth, there were 24 people in the room, most of them fascinated medical students. At 10.11am they watched as my daughter, Bonnie, came into the world, and five minutes later they saw Watson emerge, from my other womb.The twins were not our first children. Our eldest daughter, Agyness, was born two months early, in 2015, but doctors said early labour was “one of those things”. When I became pregnant with Margot, born six weeks early, in 2017, scans revealed a bicornuate uterus, which means it’s heart-shaped. But no one spotted the second one. Continue reading...
Workers were furloughed without pay amid the pandemic at the Dominican garment factory, the only one in the developing world that pays a living wageWhen Alta Gracia launched in 2010 it was hailed as an experiment to show the world that garment factory workers in the developing world could aspire to a living wage and that their labor rights could be respected. But in order to survive the company, which sells T-shirts and sweatshirts made in the Dominican Republic to US college students, also needs to make a profit. And then came Covid-19.Nine months after the pandemic hit, Alta Gracia workers were furloughed without pay and the US based company is struggling to stay afloat. This is not the first time the company has struggled and its failure to keep its head above water over a decade led some to question whether a clothing business can pay a decent wage and still be profitable. Continue reading...
In these underpowered short stories, the female characters are mere pretexts for male epiphanyEight stories are told in the first person, with each narrator a man in late middle age who shares interests, such as jazz and baseball, with his author. Only one narrator is given a name: “Haruki Murakami”. Murakami, by his own account, is less interested in creating complex characters than in the interaction his characters have with the world in which he imagines them. Even so, the women in this book are remarkably less complex, less individual, than the men, existing primarily as a pretext for the male characters to find out, or fail to find out, about themselves.The playfulness with the identity of the narrator might be more rewarding, were it not for the stretches of tepid, underpowered writing. The conversational style can be slack and cliched, speckled with reflections on philosophical questions about ageing, identity, memory and what it is to know oneself. In “The Yakult Swallows Poetry Collection”, it is hard not to read “It’s true that life brings us far more defeats than victories” as merely trite. When the situation repeats of the older man, looking back at his youth, surprised by ageing, and having learned very little (an acute enough observation), the reader, too, learns very little, and might begin to conclude that these are tales of the slightly remarkable, which one would not be tempted to read more than once. Continue reading...
by Mostafa Rachwani and Michael McGowan on (#5G376)
Acting chief medical officer says authorities are taking reports of clotting disorder after vaccination ‘very seriously’ but says no causal link has yet been proven
‘Our prime minister should have given his jab to a nurse,’ co-founder of advocacy group saysThe rollout of Covid-19 vaccinations in aged care “has been a shemozzle”, with some residents and staff in homes throughout Australia still not being given any indication of when they might receive their first dose, according to the researcher and co-founder of the advocacy group Aged Care Reform Now, Dr Sarah Russell.Her criticism comes as data from the federal Department of Health shows that residents at less than a third of aged care facilities have received the vaccine. Continue reading...
Family of Philip Mawer say it appears he died trying to escape the assault in Palma last weekA body matching the description of a missing British man has been found, eight days after he was caught up in an attack by Islamic State-linked insurgents in Mozambique.The family of Philip Mawer said on Thursday that it appeared that he had died while trying to escape the deadly assault on the town of Palma last week. Continue reading...
Guardian Australia analysis and graphic shows the trend in cases and where they’re located. Live data updates will track the numbers throughout the stateBrisbane has just lifted its lockdown but other restrictions will remain for up to two weeks.Here you can see the trend in cases, the source of those cases and their locations, using data from Queensland Health. Continue reading...
Musician faces violent disorder charge in relation to death of Fidel Glasgow outside Coventry nightclub in 2018The rapper Pa Salieu has said he is “engaging with the justice system” after being charged with violent disorder by detectives investigating the killing of a man outside a nightclub in Coventry.West Midlands police said 10 men, including the musician, had been charged in relation to the death of Fidel Glasgow. The 23-year-old, the grandson of Specials singer Neville Staple, died in hospital after being stabbed outside Club M in the early hours of 1 September 2018. Continue reading...
President hits back over critical US human rights report but also singles out Mexican press freedom group Article 19 for censureA growing row over press freedom has engulfed Mexico after the country’s nationalist president maligned a routine US human rights report which highlighted his government’s failure to protect journalists – and the behaviour of some officials against media members.Andrés Manuel López Obrador, commonly called Amlo, condemned Mexico’s mention in the state department’s annual human rights report as an unwelcome intervention in Mexican matters. Continue reading...
Boat docks in Pemba carrying those rescued from Islamic State insurgency in north of countryA boat carrying 1,200 survivors of a deadly attack by Islamic State-linked insurgents in northern Mozambique has reached safety in the port of Pemba, some of them crying on arrival after spending days hiding in the bush.Aid workers were at the port to give food to those disembarking the ferry, while police and soldiers controlled crowds of people excited to see relatives rescued during the attack that began last week in Palma, a Reuters reporter at the port said. Continue reading...
Curator of Galician show honouring surrealist admits ‘we knew there would be a fuss’ over authenticityA year after an exhibition celebrating the works of the pioneering Spanish surrealist artist Maruja Mallo closed its doors, a letter from experts has emerged claiming that none of the works displayed actually sprang from the hand of the avant garde painter.Mallo, who died in 1995, was associated with the so-called literary Generation of 27, whose members included Federico García Lorca, Ernestina de Champourcín, Pedro Salinas, Rosa Chacel, María Teresa León and Rafael Alberti. Her striking, stylised works were painted in her home country and in South America, where she lived in exile for a quarter of a century following Franco’s victory in the Spanish civil war. Continue reading...
Inclusivity in the armed forces | Festival of Brexit | Casual sexism | Boris Johnson | Signs of springWomen at the Aldermaston peace camp outside the Atomic Weapons Establishment welcome the introduction of female underwear for Swiss female armed forces recruits (Report, 31 March). They hope that the British defence review and the Ministry of Defence’s climate change and sustainability review will retrospectively copy the Swiss, inculcating a more female, peaceful and caring element into the British armed forces.
The ATP and WTA support Covid-19 vaccination but some players have shrugged their shoulders as they would have to remain in tournament bubbles regardlessAs the Miami Open marched towards its climax, one of the many off-court discussions that have raged on during the event is the simple question of the sport’s attitude towards vaccination during the pandemic. Players were asked during the week about their stance, and a trend of ambivalence became clear.For Andrey Rublev, the Russian world No 8, vaccination would make little difference to him as he would still have to remain in the tournament bubbles: “I don’t know,” Rublev said. “There is no reason. Just – I don’t know. Just by the feelings, because I never have any vaccine since I was a kid, so I don’t know. I feel OK with this way. I never had any problems with my health.” Continue reading...
Visitors urged to ‘share the space’ but latest revision lacks clear rules over barbecues and dogs on leadsSeventy years ago, visitors to the countryside were warned in rhyme that the farmer would “frown” on “lad or lass who treads his crops, or tramples grass”.Now the revised Countryside Code will encourage the unprecedented number of domestic holidaymakers to “be nice, say hello, share the space” and “make a memory” when they visit parks, coasts, woods and farmland this summer. Continue reading...
Thursday: Morrison government criticised for lack of ‘clear strategy’ on vaccinating aged care workers. Plus: Why do people discard me when I am no longer of use to them?Good morning. Political ructions in South America, frustration over aged care vaccination schedules, and praise for Australia’s resistance to China dominate the national and international headlines this Thursday. Here are your top stories.The federal government has faced criticism for failing to vaccinate aged care staff, while only half of Australia’s care residents have received priority vaccinations, despite a plan for both groups to receive their shots in the first six weeks of the rollout. The Council on the Ageing chief executive, Ian Yates, condemned the apparent lack of a “clear strategy” from Canberra, saying, “there’s no clarity around the timetable and process for the vaccination of aged care workers”. Yates also emphasised that staff could potentially be vectors for the virus, and that their prompt vaccination was critical to the safety of care residents. Despite missing its original target of 4m vaccinations by the end of March, the federal health minister, Greg Hunt, said the national program was now “accelerating as intended”. Continue reading...
It won’t improve trans people’s material conditions, but it’ll definitely make me feel greatI awoke this morning as I do every morning with a burning, unquenchable lust to be seen. Thankfully, what with it being Transgender Day of Visibility and all, I might finally have that need met.In case you’re unfamiliar, the annual holiday aims to uplift trans people and affirm our existence. It was created in 2009 by Rachel Crandall-Crocker, the executive director of Transgender Michigan, to “celebrate the living”. The community already had Transgender Day of Remembrance, but the annual November observance’s focus on death and violence always left her feeling depressed and alienated. Continue reading...
Fans of star, a professional wrestler, decry court fine of £59 as ‘too lenient’ punishment for cyberbullyA Japanese man who sent hateful online messages to a professional wrestler who later killed herself has been charged but is not to face trial.Police told AFP that the man, who has not been identified, was charged with cyberbullying Hana Kimura, who was also a TV reality show star. She died in May 2020. A Tokyo court issued an order to fine the man 9,000 yen (£59). Continue reading...
by Vikram Dodd Police and crime correspondent on (#5G0WW)
Exclusive: Whistleblower claims HMICFRS decided to support Priti Patel in seeking stronger powers before gathering evidenceThe official policing inspectorate showed repeated bias in favour of the police and against peaceful protesters as it compiled a report which backed a government clampdown, a whistleblower has alleged.The complainant says a report on protest released in March this year was skewed in favour of the government view, with conclusions reached before evidence was gathered and assessed. Continue reading...
After my first boyfriend died, Elverum’s Microphones and Mount Eerie helped me make sense of a bleak worldI first encountered the music of Phil Elverum in August 2010, a month after the death of my first boyfriend. That summer I spent hours sitting numbly in the park with my headphones on, listening to Elverum describe a landscape without colour or movement: “no black or white, no change in the light, no night, no golden sun”. That dissonance between internal and external worlds made sense to me as I watched children play and rollerbladers pass by in the sunshine as if everything was normal.I listened over and over again to his album The Glow Pt 2, released in 2001 under the name the Microphones, trying to make sense of the previous six months. I met Marc in my first year at university: a pretty, hyperactive French boy who shimmered into my life at a club night in Birmingham. I fell in love with his perfect sweep of sandy blond hair, the way he played piano with the exaggerated melodrama of his beloved symphonic metal and video game soundtracks and his habit of wrapping a USB cable around his neck like a protective amulet. Continue reading...
Worn Stories looks to unravel the tales behind the most treasured items in our wardrobes – but is such meaning and emotion easily conveyed via television?I am not a minimalist: I don’t want to live with extreme amounts of nothing. I like “things”, and I like my things, which means I have several boxes of clothes, bags and shoes in my possession that have accompanied me through the best part of two decades. One of the boxes is my best and largest suitcase. When I was still travelling fairly regularly, I would have to empty out the contents of the suitcase and pile them somewhere else for my return, a process that feels a bit like uncovering memories and repressing them again, two weeks later, with a zip that goes all the way around.Given the displacement of a series of house moves in my earlier 20s, the fact that I even still possess the navy corduroy American Apparel hotpants I wore to go clubbing at university (now, for users of the fashion app Depop, a vintage item), or the 70s-era yellow, white and purple-striped T-shirt I was wearing when I had an encounter with the far more colourful Iris Apfel, the interior designer, feels nothing short of miraculous. Today, I can recite what I was wearing to interview various figures in my former role as an editor at a fashion magazine, outfits carefully planned though liable to go awry, like when the zip on my green, chequered skirt broke off while meeting Chloë Sevigny. Continue reading...
If you’ve been saving it to pour over pancakes, here are some brilliant new options, including bacon lollies, mouthwatering aubergines and some very grown up Rice Krispies
by Written and read by Martin Woollacott, produced by on (#5G0ED)
We are raiding the Audio Long Reads archives and bringing you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors.This week: In a special tribute to Martin Woollacott, the Guardian’s former foreign correspondent and foreign editor, who has died at the age of 81, Alan Rusbridger reflects on his fondest memories of Martin and how this ‘giant of journalism’ should be remembered.From 2015: North Vietnamese troops who marched into the capital on 30 April 1975. It marked the most crushing defeat in US military history. Four decades after he reported on these events for the Guardian, Martin Woollacott reflects upon what it meant for the future of both nations
Musician Rebeca Omordia has spent years unearthing the classical music of a whole continent, culminating in the hugely successful African Concert SeriesWhile the Wigmore Hall has rightly garnered plaudits for keeping classical music alive during lockdown, another pioneering concert series has also beaten the odds with its series of online live events.The African Concert Series is the brainchild of my former duo partner, the pianist Rebeca Omordia. She has half-Romanian, half-Nigerian heritage. But while we would often discuss world-renowned Romanian classical musicians such as composer Georges Enescu, pianist Dinu Lipatti and conductor Sergiu Celibidache, when it came to Nigerian classical composers, we drew a blank. “There aren’t any,” said Rebeca. I told her there must be, and challenged her to find them. This was back in 2013, and her subsequent research has uncovered more than 200 composers of African art music, Nigerians among them. Continue reading...
New Zealand lizard expert Ben Barr, who spent years looking under rocks for the elusive Cupola, has finally found what he was looking forAfter two years spent turning over thousands of rocks in search of the Cupola gecko, New Zealand lizard expert Ben Barr had been starting to wonder: “Am I ever going to find this thing?”But this month, in the Nelson Lakes national park at the top of the South Island, he lifted another rock – and there it was. “I was totally euphoric. I was over the moon. I couldn’t believe it. I was screaming and yelling, it was incredible. I almost cried.” Continue reading...
The mortgage broker, who has admitted outraging public decency after the 2020 Melbourne crash, wants to avoid further jail timePorsche driver Richard Pusey has been described by a Melbourne judge as “probably the most hated man in Australia” for filming dead and dying police officers after a freeway crash.The mortgage broker wants to be spared further time in custody after admitting to charges including outraging public decency over the April 2020 Eastern Freeway crash in Melbourne. Continue reading...
Bernardo Catchura spent a last desperate night seeking treatment in the healthcare system he had spent decades campaigning to improve. His wife is still unsure how he diedIn their 15 years together, Maimuna Catchura had not known her husband to be ill. But one night in late January, 39-year-old lawyer, activist and musician Bernardo Catchura could not sleep, and complained of severe stomach pain.The pain forced Catchura from his bed at his house in Bissau, Guinea-Bissau’s capital. That night he would navigate the country’s medical care maze, visiting pharmacies, clinics and hospitals. Before the night was through, he even considered crossing the border into Senegal to get help. Continue reading...
After being refused entry to several countries on health grounds, the surviving animals were ordered back to Spain for slaughterRead more: Stranded cattle ship ordered to dock in Spain after ‘hellish’ three months at sea
by Presented by Anushka Asthana with Michael Safi; pr on (#5G00R)
The gigantic cargo ship the Ever Given blocked the world’s busiest shipping lane for a week. Michael Safi reports on what the costly nautical traffic jam can tell us about global tradeThe Suez canal, built in 1869, is a 120-mile strip of water that has been called a “ditch in the desert”. Nearly 20,000 ships pass through it a year, so when the Ever Given, one of the biggest vessels ever built, became wedged last week and blocked it, global trade through the canal ground to a halt.The Guardian international correspondent, Michael Safi, tells Anushka Asthana the story of the crash, including the efforts to free the ship and the impact the blockage had on the movement of trade across the globe. The retired Turkish mariner Alper Gergin explains why steering a ship of such as size is harder than handling a Boeing 747. Continue reading...
Kremlin says leaders discussed possibility of shipments and joint production amid shortage of doses inside EuropeVladimir Putin, Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron discussed Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine and its use in Europe on a conference call on Tuesday, the Kremlin said.Moscow’s statement said that among other subjects the Russian, German and French leaders discussed prospects for the registration of the vaccine in the EU and the possibility of shipments and joint production in EU nations. It did not say who raised the topic. Continue reading...
Industry body report shows 70% decline in visitor numbers at British attractions last yearA “phenomenal” summer of culture in the UK without crowds, queues or inbound tourists beckons, tourism chiefs have promised, as new figures were published laying bare just how bad 2020 was.Bernard Donoghue, the director of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA), said there would probably not be another chance for people to experience the nation’s museums, galleries, zoos, castles, country houses and theme parks as they will be able to this year. Continue reading...
The rapper behind Montero (Call Me By Your Name) and Satan Shoes has fired back at conservative critics one by oneIt has been four days since Lil Nas X released the music video for Montero (Call Me By Your Name) and turned into the most controversial pop star on the planet. The video, which features the rapper sliding down a pole to hell before giving the devil a lap dance, has garnered criticism from conservative politicians and commentators, who say the song encourages devil worshiping and scandalizes young fans.In a note written to his younger self about the release, Lil Nas X (whose real name is Montero Lamar Hill) said he had created the video hoping to further normalize queerness. “I know we promised to never be ‘that’ type of gay person, I know we promised to die with the secret, but this will open doors for many other queer people to simply exist,” he said. Continue reading...
by Bethan McKernan Middle East correspondent on (#5FZDE)
Reduced £205m offer at UN pledging conference comes with 90% of Syrians living in povertySyrians and aid organisations have warned that “lives will be lost” as a result of the UK’s decision to cut aid funding to the conflict-stricken country.The UN hoped to raise $10bn (£7.3bn) from governments and donors at a virtual two-day pledging conference for Syria that concluded on Tuesday – the biggest appeal yet to help both people inside and those displaced outside the country. The total amount of money pledged is going to be announced at 7pm UK time. Continue reading...
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