The Observer - Access Interviews

Gary Greenberg

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:15:10 +0000

Psychotherapist and author of Manufacturing Depression Gary Greenberg talks to Tim Adams about drugs, depression and true love. Gary Greenberg first realised he suffered from what we have come to call depression one afternoon in 1987. He was 30, in a failing marriage, and the understanding came to him after he had lain on the floor all afternoon in his study and watched particles of dust falling in a shaft of light while "racked by some unspecifiable pain, like my whole being was a phantom limb".

Ashley Walters

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:15:10 +0000

The actor, 27, on gang culture and becoming his father. My mum's been my backbone, my inspiration, and the person who's pushed me in my career. She was like a man – not in her looks (she'd kill me for that), but in her strength. I grew up in Peckham, which had a big gang culture, and I took part in that. I was bullied at school, I was mugged a lot, so being a part of something made me feel safe.

Rachida Dati

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:15:10 +0000

Rachida Dati caused a furore when she went back to work as France's justice minister only five days after giving birth last year. Now an MEP, she explains how her penchant for stilettos can coexist with her drive to succeed in politics.

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:15:10 +0000

The BBC Films boss looks forward to the Baftas and Peter Morgan's new film - and recalls the challenges of making In the LoopThere's just a week to go now until the Baftas and all of us at BBC Films are excited about a record number of nominations this year. Of course in some categories our films are going to be in contention with each other, so I have to try to be impartial throughout the awards season. For example, An Education, Fish Tank and In the Loop are all competing for Outstanding British Film.In the Loop had particular challenges – uncompromising, as it is, in its language and the way it was shot. Along the way, there were those – some distributors, for example – who wanted to talk to creator Armando Iannucci about changing the language. Which was always going be a non-starter. It was a case of fuckity-bye to them!The film was quite tricky to set up and finance, because it didn't obey the rules of conventional film-making. Armando likes to cast actors early and then feed their work to the writing team of Jesse Armstrong, Tony Roche and Simon Blackwell – so there wasn't a conventional script to present to people.My predecessor David Thompson had originally commissioned it and my colleague Paula Jalfon worked wonders in finding ways to finance it . Although the TV show The Thick of It had a strong loyal fanbase, the debate was whether we'd reach anything like a mainstream audience with the film.I remember overhearing conversations in stores such as HMV and getting terribly excited because young people were talking about Armando's new project. It seemed that we were able to take it from that tiny but wonderful niche audience to a theatrical crowd. At the Oscars, the In the Loop writers will be competing with Nick Hornby for An Education – a very deft, charming and economical script – in the best adapted screenplay category. That's two British films out of five in one category – which says a hell of a lot about the quality of writing in the UK. And I think it's the skills of our writers that keep Americans interested in working with us.Perhaps we overcomplicate our relationship with the States – get overly neurotic about our assumed inferior status in the relationship. I think we can be proud of what we do here, while also respecting what the Americans do and enjoy our deals with them.Looking at the American film industry is educative and informative but let's not pretend we're going to have the same industry here. But there are all sorts of collaborations to be had with the Americans without needing to sell our culture down the river.At one point, we had two projects in development with the working title of Special Relationship. One became In the Loop and the other, which retains the title, is Peter Morgan's new film (which we're aiming to release this summer).Peter's film explores the relationship through the intensely political bond of Tony Blair and Bill Clinton. The film's time frame goes from 1994, when New Labour was taking lessons from Clinton's people, to 1998 and the end of Kosovo. It focuses on the international activities of Blair as prime minister and what he learns from his American ally.They're brothers in arms, but Clinton is weakened by the Lewinsky scandal in the middle of it all, while Blair strengthens his position, moving from being something of an acolyte to equal to moral superior, post-Kosovo.I don't think the "special relationship" has ever been fresher as a topic – although I sort of wish the film was coming out next week. Peter always has a good human dramatic angle on the much larger dramas of realpolitik, and he certainly does here.I heard the film's final score this week, composed by the amazing Alexandre Desplat, who we worked with on The Queen and whose CV includes the recent film A Prophet.It's exciting to be working with HBO as it has a luminous record and has changed the industry landscape. It's very ambitious and enabling – and we've all been amused at times by how our off screen "special relationship" threatens at times to ape the on-screen version, as we negotiate the delicate balance of power in terms of editorial decisions.I met Ralph Fiennes to celebrate the start of filming on his directorial debut this week. Ralph is directing a contemporary version of Coriolanus set in Belgrade, which the writer John Logan has adapted brilliantly.I also managed to squeeze in a trip to see Logan's new play, Red, at the Donmar Warehouse in central London. It's just the most brilliant examination and discussion of art. Really fiery and ferocious, and Alfred Molina as Rothko and Eddie Redmayne, as his assistant, are brilliant and completely captivating.At one point, they stand with their backs to the audience and prepare a canvas and then turn and are absolutely drenched in red paint. The dialogue is to die for – clever, witty and explosive.I'll be interested to see Gordon Brown's interview today with Piers Morgan. From the clips released during the week, I was surprised by the apparent candour of the interview. Way back when we were making Peter Morgan's film The Deal, anyone close to Gordon would tell you that it's very hard for him to communicate aspects of his character.I think it probably tells you more about where we're at in our contemporary politics. There just seems to be a need in our culture to get very personal. However, good dramatisation of politics is rarely about such bald statements. Instead, it's all about reading what's going on between the lines.We get a lot of news, 24/7 and from all angles, but I don't know whether all this information results in people feeling better equipped to understand the decisions that are taken.I think there's a mischievous element to drama where you can speculate a bit about the man or woman behind the news. So, in its own more elegant way, it gets to a truth which might escape a more "factual" account.The LifeStudied English at Cambridge. Lives with partner, Christian, and two young children.Development assistant for British Screen; script editor for Granada; moved to comedy department in 1993 and developed Cold Feet. Other TV credits include producing Bafta winner The Deal and Royal Television Society winner Dirty Filthy Love. Film credits: she co-produced Pierrepoint(2005) and The Queen (2006). As boss of BBC Films, she has been executive producer on a string of successes, including In the Loop and Fish Tank.Armando IannucciBBCguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Luke Johnson

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:15:10 +0000

In the first interview after his surprise takeover of Borders, Luke Johnson plans expanding into toys. It is hard to resist scanning a new acquaintance's bookshelf for a clue to their personality. Take Luke Johnson's favourite novels: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson and Nostromo by Joseph Conrad. In between chairing Channel 4, sitting on several boards and writing a newspaper column, he is currently reading - 'before I go to bed, when I travel on trains and on holiday, and sometimes on a Sunday afternoon if the children will let me,' - JG Ballard's Kingdom Come

Joshua Ferris

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:15:10 +0000

The author, 35, in his own wordsI come from a very illustrious line of divorcees. We love to get divorced in my family. My mother and father have been married four times each – eight ceremonies with the best of intentions.When I was 11, I started following the stock market. I didn't understand a word, but I would choose my stocks for the week and I'd call my father and ask him how they were doing. He bought me a call, like an option – $50, I think it was Nike. I felt very mogul-ish.If I'm not working on the book, it's always there. I don't know what the proper metaphor is – maybe a pilot light; maybe, more accurately, a low-grade fever.After I left college I thought, very naively, that either you became someone interesting – an artist – or you went into academia. If you ended up in an office you were dull and lacking. And I ended up in an office.My proudest shameful moment in the office is that my boss nicknamed me Captain Tuttle, the fictional person in MASH they would blame whenever anything went wrong.After my parents divorced, my father and I played chess through the mail, with Velcro chess pieces. It would take, what, four years for a game?Everybody is carrying around their little backpack of woe. You know, my father's always complaining about his sinuses – any given day you call him, he knows the barometric pressure. My mother has low blood sugar, so all she eats is chicken. My wife, every once in a while she says: "I don't have enough skin" – it just means she has cramp. And I suffer from insomnia.My next book is going to be about religion. Obviously, that's a rather inexhaustible topic.The inanities and absurdities of corporate life are so obvious that I had to avoid them like the plague when I wrote my first book [Then We Came to the End]. I found a great deal of nobility there – you know, people doing jobs they might not like, doing it for their kids. Which is not to say that I felt those things while I was there… I felt my life was draining away.I've always thought things were absurd. It would take a lot more effort for me to see things as reasonable.As far as I'm concerned, writing a book is the most preposterous thing a person can do. Because it's so all-consuming. Even a mediocre writer has done something really difficult. You can dismiss a book as a bad book, but you can't dismiss the achievement as a bad achievement.Love, loss of love, sanity, loss of sanity: whatever I thought was pertinent and necessary in my latest book was enabled by the fact that the hero was ill.Who knows about any marriage? The word's still out on my own marriage.Inevitably I find myself coming back to fiction; I have a fortunately limited patience for the truth.I felt fairly lost as a boy. When we moved to Key West from a small town in Illinois, I was bored to tears. I kept thinking: the ocean is supposed to be a boy's dream. I enjoy the beach now that I drink beer, but at the time all I had was Gatorade. I think I would have been much happier if we'd moved to a mountain, or somewhere near an abyss.I think most things are either funny or bleak.The main questions of everyday life are too enormous to answer in any definitive sense. The Unnamed is published by Viking, £12.99guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

David Bailey

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:15:10 +0000

The photographer, 72, on the Rolling Stones and seductionWhen I swear, it's an endearment. But it doesn't look that way when it's written down.Sixties culture has endured because that era was the beginning of "the medium is the message" – Marshall McLuhan's theory of the media. The current nostalgia for that decade is understandable. I used to love the 20s.I've got an enormous collection of things – from skulls to African art. I don't see why I shouldn't collect – it'll all be dispersed when I die, back into circulation.American Vogue editor Diana Vreeland was a great friend. There was no one as chic as Vreeland, and they're still copying her now. She was awful to work with, though – she was only interested in fashion, not photography.All that "golden years" stuff is nonsense. I'm 72 and it's not better at the end of the road.Actors are hard to photograph because they never want to reveal who they are. You don't know if you're getting a character from a Chekhov play or a Polanski film. It depends what mood they're in.Sometimes I dream with my eyes open and see extraordinary Goya-esque faces. I wish I could photograph them in my mind, or draw them.The best advice I ever got was that knowledge is power and to keep reading. A Jewish art student told me that when I was 16. We were outside Whitechapel tube station.Jonathan Miller sums up the British for me: "This mean and bitter land." I don't like the pettiness of the English, the jealousy.I still bump into the Rolling Stones a lot. Ronnie Wood phoned yesterday and said he's got a new girlfriend. They're all new – well, none of them are old.Is it more interesting to leave your mark or to leave a scar? It's a toss-up, I'd say.You can't photograph someone's soul, but you can photograph their body language. I watch how someone moves – the little things. I spend more time talking to people than photographing them.I don't get football. I don't like any sport except boxing and bull fighting. At my school sports day the teachers used to take my shoes and socks so I couldn't piss off home.I photographed Laurence Olivier on his 80th birthday. I thought: "How am I going to deal with this man?" But he drank two bottles of champagne and his nurse had to help him up the stairs. He was completely unpretentious and a very nice bloke.There's nothing wrong with seduction. People say I seduced a lot of women, which makes me very immature. Well, what does that make the women I seduced? ■Pure Sixties – Pure Bailey is at Bonhams, 101 New Bond Street, London W1 from 7 March to 7 AprilDavid Baileyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

David Mitchell

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:15:10 +0000

The comedian and actor, 35, on vanity, how often men think about sex, and why therapy is not like dentristyAre you healthy? I have relatively good health despite, rather than because of, my habits. I probably have quite a bad diet and I probably drink too much, but you can be reasonably unhealthy for the first 35 years of life and still count yourself unlucky if you die.Any notable accidents? I think when I was one and a bit I took a corner too fast on my walker and smashed my head on a skirting board. I still have a very slight mark between my eyebrows from that, but I've been quite timid and careful since.Do you worry about your weight? No. I had a very bad back a couple of years ago, and lots of people advised different things, but the one thing everyone agreed on was walking. By walking for an hour every day, and still eating my horrific diet, I was able to get a bit thinner. I was slightly ashamed of being pleased about the weight loss, because the reason was my back, not vanity; nevertheless, that vanity is in me, otherwise I wouldn't be pleased.What is your attitude to smoking? I've been an on and off social smoker for ages and never got hooked, so I reserve the right to have one on a fun night.And drugs? When I was at university I would occasionally have some cannabis, but I don't think I ever determined what being stoned felt like, because I never had any when I was sober. Your dedicated pothead wouldn't sully his palate with lager.Have you ever had therapy? No. Some people can be massively helped by therapy, but I don't agree that everyone should get some – it's not like dentistry.How do you feel about cosmetic surgery? I think it's stupid and it almost always looks shit. It's a trend entirely based on vanity, and vanity is not an admirable trait at all.Is sex important to you? Yes, but I would hesitate to say it's more important than average. People say men think about sex every six seconds; I can't believe that – it takes longer than six seconds to think about it properly once.NHS or private? NHS. I don't have an ethical problem with private healthcare, though. Considering I'm self-employed I should probably have some sort of health insurance sorted out, but at the same time I should've learnt how to drive a car.The Bubble is a comedy news quiz hosted by David Mitchell, Fridays on BBC2 at 10pmDavid MitchellHealth & wellbeingguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Theo Paphitis

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:15:10 +0000

The Dragons' Den star and former Millwall chairman on his love for footballBefore withering the hopes of contestants on the BBC's Dragons' Den, Theo Paphitis (net worth: £145m) was the chairman who took Millwall FC out of administration and into the Championship. His stationery company sponsors the Ryman League. What's your first sporting memory?When we arrived in the UK on the banana boat we settled right by Old Trafford. So the first recollections I have, as a six-year-old, in 1966, are of people milling around on a Saturday afternoon, and wondering what the hell was going on. England won the World Cup that same year: it just didn't get any better than that. After that I went to football as often as I could. I bunked off school to go to reserve games because you could get in for free. I was always useless at playing the game. It didn't ruin my enjoyment of it though.How did you end up owning a club?I got approached 20 years ago to put a few bob in my local club, Walton and Hersham, in the Ryman League. I'm still a director and part-owner.What has been your favourite match?The 2004 FA Cup semi-final between Millwall and Sunderland. I thought we'd end up losing because of the error of a player or referee. To win, and to know you're in the final against Man United, it brought to mind schoolboy memories of watching the FA Cup final on TV. And we were going to be part of it.Given your performances on Dragons' Den, you must be quite an intimidating prospect as chairman?Nah! I'm a pussycat. Plus football managers have this arrogance and think they know everything. It's stupid.Did Millwall's fans give you a hard time?Their reputation is a little unjust. I had a great eight years. I was a first-generation immigrant, and when I was just about to take over, someone told me that they looked at me and thought: "Are you mad? They're going to string you up from the rafters." But I didn't get one bit of racial abuse. Lots of abuse about the team playing rubbish, by the way, and rightly so.In Dragons' Den you invested in a firm that made inline skates, but hadn't sold a single pair. Have you tried them out?You've got to be joking! Have you ever seen a baby giraffe trying to walk for the first time? That would look a lot more elegant.EMMA JOHNEmma Johnguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Alexander McQueen

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:15:10 +0000

When Givenchy's Alexander McQueen met Gucci's Tom Ford it was love at first sight and led to one of the most controversial coups in fashion history. In his first interview since signing the deal, the British Designer of the Year talks about power and politics in the fashion world and how it feels to be worth £50m

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:15:10 +0000

The journalist and novelist hails the launch of the iPad, but still believes the greatest invention was spectaclesWH Auden thought that people shouldn't work and sleep on the same floor of a house, otherwise they would go mad. Too many of us now live in flats for that rule to be helpful, but a contemporary equivalent might be that you risk your sanity if you do all your work and all your play on the same computer. A video-gaming friend warned me against that some years ago and it was good advice.This is one reason I was so excited about the launch of the new Apple device, widely referred to as the iTablet until its real name turned out to be the iPad. I know there are people out there who don't get the point of the Pad, but I'm not one of them. On the one hand, we have the work computer in the workspace. On the other, we have the iPad in the living room. In my case, one of its primary functions is going to be to settle television-based marital disagreements of the following type:"That's the bloke who was in the other one.""No he isn't."And there are so many other things the iPad is clearly going to be brilliant for, such as viewing YouTube videos of skateboarding rottweilers or visiting websites dedicated to cats that look like Mussolini. So I was in a state of high excitement come Wednesday. In fact, I spent most of the day unable to concentrate, wandering around the house saying: "One gadget to rule them all" in a Lord of the Rings voice.Unfortunately, I was in a radio studio during the launch and missed the real-time unveiling of the "Everything Killer", as some of the pre-publicity was referring to the iTablet (usually in pieces which began with the words: "Not since Moses…"). That meant that by the time I had got online I had missed the five seconds during which everyone was excited and arrived in the middle of the backlash – an amazing cacophony of people who hadn't used the iPad loudly saying what a load of rubbish it is. Astounding to have had such a thorough backlash and online kicking and festival of trash talk for something which doesn't yet exist.The serious reason for being interested in the iPad, from the writer's point of view, is to do with books. I have a new book out about the credit crunch and it made it on to the New York Times extended bestseller list in its first week. This was very good news and it wouldn't have happened without a significant proportion of digital sales. I'm not supposed to say how big a fraction it was, but I was startled and have gone from being someone who thought that ebooks might be a big deal one day, but not yet, to thinking that ebooks are already a big deal.I'm told that their impact is not level across the whole range of books published. One category where lots of ebooks are sold is in the area of business and money – which makes sense. Another, more surprisingly, is romance fiction. Apparently, a large number of ebook early adopters are women in their thirties and forties with professional and corporate jobs. They read a lot, both for work and for escapism, and one of the things they like to read is romance fiction – and a great feature of ebooks is that other people can't tell what you are reading. So you can sit there on the tube looking as if you're swotting up "Seven Habits of Highly Effective Cheese-Movers", or whatever the latest management book is, while secretly you're reading books about cruel but handsome doctors and the misunderstood young nurses who wuv them.My previous view had been that no one had yet perfected the technology of the ebook, but that when someone did, we would know it as soon as we saw it. Obviously, I haven't seen an iPad yet, but I had been told by someone given a sneak preview that when you see it, you realise it is It.The new device comes with access to a shiny new online shop, via a new platform called iBooks. It represents quite a change of mind – or a brazen piece of misdirection – from Steve Jobs. Only two years ago, in January 2008, he told the New York Times that ebook readers were a waste of time. "It doesn't matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don't read anymore," he said. "Forty per cent of the people in the US read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don't read anymore." Sure looks like he's altered his view about that.Further reinforcing the point about books and the digital revolution, the day after the iPad launch was 28 January, the day on which writers had to decide whether they wanted to opt out of the Google books settlement. Some of the fine print and technical details of this is complicated. The broad outline is pretty simple, however: Google is reserving to itself the right to copy digitally, and display online, every book ever published in America and will go ahead and do that to your books unless you specifically tell them not to. It's a complete violation of the principle of copyright – it is Google giving itself permission to do things with other people's property. I opted out and every writer I know has done the same.People tend to think of technology as being, in the words of the American digital guru Bran Ferren, "stuff that doesn't work yet". When something works so well we can completely rely on it, we no longer experience it as being technology. For me, about the single most important piece of technology ever invented was spectacles. I've been using them all day every day, for pretty much everything, since I was diagnosed with short sight at the age of eight.Back then, you used to be told that it was OK being short sighted because as you got older your sight became longer and it would correct itself. I distinctly remember being told this many times by opticians when I was a kid. Guess what: it's total rubbish. I've just been to have my eyes tested and it turns out that now I need different glasses for distance and for close work.My reward for several decades as a speccy is to be transformed into another, completely different kind of speccy. I wonder if all those opticians from my childhood knew they were fibbing and were just trying to reassure?Anyway, the iPad launch was for me nowhere near the week's most significant tech event. That title belongs to my first-ever pair of reading glasses. The technology seems to have been invented in Italy in about 1280 and it still rocks.AppleSteve JobsGoogleguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:15:10 +0000

The opera dreictor's week includes preparing for the opening of Donizetti's Elixir of Love, musing on locked-in syndrome and curating a new photographic exhibitionThere are for me only about 25 to 30 operas that as a theatre director I can bear to do – dramatically speaking, most are just kitsch rubbish. Musically wonderful, but often set in historical periods which bear no relation to anything in reality at all. That's why we're setting Donizetti's Elixir of Love in a Fifties diner in the desert in south-west America.With only a few days to go until we open, everything is in place. I'm now just tweaking things. As a director, I don't nudge my actors. I try to give them a little story to draw their attention to what they already know. It's like teaching a child a language. Once they've got the grammar, they can then utter an infinite number of gestures, which are consistent with the original direction. I always say bad productions get worse when left to their own devices and good productions invariably get better.Many of the ways in which people appear on the stage are completely artificial. I've always been fascinated and influenced by philosophers who have written about action. It's an idea that has preoccupied me ever since I was a medical student and on the stage I'm preoccupied by those negligible details of action – the trivial details of what people are doing when they're saying something are often left out in theatre. They will fiddle with the lapel of a jacket or rub their index finger along the arm of the chair while staring sightlessly into the middle distance. It's often a question of reminding performers of these movements. Once you tell them, they say: "Oh, of course!"As time has gone on, I've become more and more preoccupied with these negligible details – it's really all behaviour consists of. I think there's an enormous amount of bullshit, which prevails in what is now called conceptual theatre. I'm deeply influenced by Chekhov who doesn't deal with concepts; he deals with negligible people who realised that we'll all be forgotten within 40 years of our deaths.In his plays, it's the negligible details that somehow excite the audience and turn their imagination inwards to their own memories. That's really all I'm interested in. I hate concepts.I trained as a clinical neurologist before I became a director and I was drawn to the story of "locked-in" patients communicating through scanners. I think that if it can be shown to be reliable, this new ability to communicate will be very interesting. We've become very impressed with these machines that show us brain activity, but what we learn from them is very questionable. Just because nerves go on in certain parts of the brain we have intimations of what types of faculties are being promoted at that moment, but we don't know what somebody is experiencing.Locked-in syndrome is extremely dramatic and very rare and is almost impossible to conceive of, but is not unrelated to what it must be like on the ground floor of a collapsed building when you're locked in mechanically.Like everybody else, I was preoccupied and distressed by the ruined life in Haiti. I was profoundly disturbed by the appearance of people who had appeared after six or seven days and were still alive. What is it like to be alive under fallen girders in the knowledge that you might not ever be found? And what's it like to be those who have survived the quake and have no food and no medical resources at all?I'm amazed no one has pointed out the similarity between being neurally and mechanically locked in.I noted that the Oscar nominations were announced last week. Most films seem to me to be utter rubbish. However, I did recently see what I consider to be one of the best films of the past 30 years – Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon. It's a startlingly brilliant film with minute attention to tiny details. It has a finesse which I think is only equalled by Edgar Reitz's Heimat.I also saw the Coen brothers' A Serious Man, which amused and delighted me. It works because it doesn't do funny shtick; it's just simply accurate. That's why Chekhov had such a huge influence on me. He called his plays comedies not because they're full of people doing funny things but because they are full of things we recognise.Alongside preparing the Donizetti, I've also been curating an exhibition at the Estorick Collection in Islington, north London. The exhibition, called On The Move, is a small but rather impressive selection of photographs that deal with the problem of representing movement in static images. There's no such thing as a moving picture. Nevertheless, artists have been very skilful at capturing positions and postures from which the spectator can infer what is going on.What you look at in the cinema is, of course, a succession of still images separated by black frames. Even if you happen to know that's what you're looking at, there's no way you can exempt yourself from the illusion. It is an illusion, but a very convincing one from which an entire industry has arisen.Early photography couldn't represent anything at all except static things like buildings and roads. If you look at the early photographs of Daguerre in 1839, there are photographs of Paris at high noon and the streets are deserted . The reason is that anything that moved left no trace. Gradually, the chemistry of the plates improved and you got smudges and then you got people frozen in fixed positions from which you could infer the movement of the crowds.In the 1870s, it began to occur to people that by capturing these still moments you could in fact correct some of the false representations of movement previously held by painters and sculptors. For example, things such as the galloping horse, where there are four legs moving at the same time, they almost invariably got wrong by showing the animal with its two fore legs thrust forwards and its two hind legs thrust backwards in what was called the rocking horse position.No horse has ever moved like that, ever. But it wasn't until Eadweard Muybridge, an English landscape photographer, invented an extraordinary way of photographing a moving horse using 20 cameras that we realised every position that had previously been represented in painting was wrong. He singlehandedly revolutionised the representation of the movement of the horse.At the same time, Étienne-Jules Marey, a French physiologist, invented an alternative way of producing similar images to create a stroboscopic effect from which you could see the trajectory of a movement. The futurists eventually became very influenced by Marey, and Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending the Stairs couldn't have happened if he hadn't seen the photographs of Marey.OperaPhotographyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Gordon Brown

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:15:10 +0000

Gordon Brown has thrust the issue of Tory party donations to the centre of the election campaign by declaring that the secrecy surrounding its biggest financial backer – Lord Ashcroft – is "a scandal". In an exclusive interview with the Observer, in which he spoke at length of the need to restore faith in politics following the controversy over MPs' expenses, the prime minister attacked the lack of transparency over the peer's financial links to the Tories, saying it was profoundly wrong. Delivering his strongest comments yet on the "Ashcroft question", Brown said it was now the duty of journalists and opposition politicians to "press these people for answers". "It's a scandal that we haven't had proper answers about where the [Ashcroft] money has come from and what the status of this person is." The comments came as Brown, buoyed by last week's deal on the devolution of policing and justice in Northern Ireland and a narrowing of the Tory lead in recent opinion polls, predicted Labour could still win the next election – even with an overall majority. "I'm not complacent, but Labour can still win it," he said. "I'm absolutely sure of that." He said that, as the economy emerged from recession, people would consider which party had made the right choices during the economic crisis. "I think people will look very carefully at us again and I think they'll make a decision. I've got faith in the good sense of the British people," he said.

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:15:10 +0000

The comedian, 38, in his own wordsI never try out new material on my family – it would be unfair on them. They'd be trying to watch Wallander, concentrating on dead Swedes. It's not appropriate.Since In The Thick Of It, if I want to feel validated I go and hang around Millbank. They all like me round there.Audiences love it when you talk about where you are, because they know you're not doing that anywhere else. They know they're the only ones who get that.The advice I'd give my children: don't touch that, give that to Daddy, stand still while I clear that up.Parliament should be moved to a high-rise in Birmingham. It has to be taken out of Westminster. It's not connected to normal life. Politicians will have been in debating societies at school, then leading their student union, so when they get into the Palace it's "I can't believe I'm here, oh my God". Immediately any good intentions they have are gone.I used to write a personal finance column in the Guardian. I still have no pension. I have an Isa somewhere, but I've lost the password. I can see it on a website, but I can't spend it. It's behind glass, flicking the Vs at me.People come up to me and say, "Do I know you?" a lot. I still don't know how to handle it.My advice for people considering stand-up? Don't. We're full. There's a moratorium for the next seven years. Come back to me in seven years and we may have to extend that. It's the worst life you could possibly pick. No good will come of it. If you want any information on a PGCE then I can get you the numbers.I've lived in London for 12 years. I don't know any southerners, I only know people who've come to London – apart from my wife, she's lovely, I married her, so they can't be all bad. My kids are southerners, much to my mixed feelings.I once secretly replaced my sister's hamster after my cat ate it. Two weeks later my sister said to me, "Strangest thing, the hamster has changed sex." It was only recently that I explained what happened. For years she thought that hamsters could change gender at will.You mustn't ever drink before you go on stage. If you have a drink and you do well, and you think "That was the drink", you've got yourself into a bad situation.Make your Plan B as unfeasible as possible. That should encourage Plan A.When I started out, I tried hiding my middle classness, but really quickly realised it didn't work because it wasn't me. There's loads of people doing that London chat thing, and you think, "C'mon – your dad's a judge."Radio 5 Live makes me feel like I'm in my kitchen, which is generally where I am. Radio 1 makes me feel like I'm in a shoe shop, which makes me feel old.The only piece of advice I get offered is: "Move the microphone a bit further away from your mouth, it's easier." It's a metaphor, obviously.I have most of my best ideas when I'm brushing my teeth. Maybe I should floss them, too. One day you'll see me doing an amazing show with really, really clean teeth.The minute we hit on a name for our son my wife's labour started, and for that reason I'll not be choosing any funeral music for the next 40 years.Chris Addison's nationwide tour begins on 5 February: www.chrisaddison.comChris Addisonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:15:10 +0000

The actor, 54, on her love of ceramics, the bliss of sleep, and why kids should treat drugs as if they were spinachAre you healthy? Pretty healthy. Both my parents had heart problems: my mother had type 2 diabetes and my father had a stroke. Unfortunately my mum died five years ago and that really was a shock – it made me very conscious of diet and exercise.Any notable accidents? I've fallen over on stage a couple of times, but I've only ever bruised my ego.How do you relax? I have just started doing a ceramics course and I absolutely love it.How much sleep do you need? I bloody love sleep – if I could have 72 hours a night I would.How much do you drink? A glass or two of wine twice a week. I didn't really drink at all in my 20s and 30s. It's not really been in my make-up.Attitude to smoking? I've never smoked, but my mum smoked a lot all her life and she died of severe heart disease. Her partner also smoked and died of cancer of the tongue, so I think my attitude is pretty clear – it's a killer.And drugs? I wish kids felt the same way about drugs as they do about spinach: "No, I'm not even going to try it."Are you happy? Yes, because I have the right balance between life and work. I make time to do what I want to do rather than just taking time to do what I think I ought to.Have you ever taken an antidepressant? When I had postnatal depression I took them for about three months and just got my nose above the surface of the water.How do you feel about cosmetic surgery? I wouldn't consider it for myself, not in a million years. You read about poor people having Botox go wrong and you think: "Well, what the bloody hell were you doing?" Why would you inject yourself with poison? And why are we spending so much time looking at ourselves? I just don't get it.★February is National Heart Month. For your free Heart Information Pack, go to www.bhf.org.ukImelda StauntonHealth & wellbeingguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:15:10 +0000

Phill Jupitus at Little Italy, SohoI used to be very reluctant to talk about food because of my size. I was the go-to guy for comment whenever a new report came out about childhood obesity – and once when a piece was published saying that overweight celebrities were to blame. It mentioned James Corden and Jo Brand by name, but thankfully I was saved.I love that you can go to Bar Italia late at night, damaged. I've been going there for my espresso since I first arrived in London. I've learned to enjoy the nastiness of coffee with age. If I ever find myself in reduced circumstances I'd still save up for a weekly cappuccino. And then [Mark] Lamarr introduced me to this place just next door. The location is perfect. You forget you're in Soho, then step outside into the Big Issue sellers and terrified tourists and someone you think you recognise coming out of the Groucho. You feel you're part of something bigger. Usually in central London you want to do hit-and-run eating, but here I'm already planning when I can next come.Food is another reason that Nick Griffin is a pinhead. Imagine the food we'd eat under the BNP: fried and tasteless. This country will live and die on its stomach. Last summer I spent a month in Italy, experiencing food properly – the textures, the flavours. Italian food bridges the gap between mystery and pragmatic homeliness. I went to Italy in pursuit of the perfect espresso, so it was a jittery holiday for me, walking alone at 7 o'clock in the morning across empty piazzas, cannonballing an espresso and then standing by the bar for a slower cappuccino. Eventually I found it – the perfect espresso. It was an Indiana Jones moment, and it cost less than a euro. I was quite overwhelmed.I'm an enthusiastic, if basic, cook – but my family loves my roasts because it's me cooking. Despite loving lobster, my last meal would be Heinz beans on toast. It's reassuring, and it's basic, and it reminds you what food really is – fuel. I was on Twitter the other night talking about random delights – writing on a rubber with Biro. Old people holding hands. The cloud of breath above a rugby scrum. And beans on toast is one of them.If I had to choose an addiction, it would be food. I'd inject gravy. The thing about great food is that it makes a moment. I've stacked them up: strawberries with black pepper, ordered for me by Clement Freud. The New England clam chowder I had in Boston. A bialy with wasabi-flavoured fish roe I had from Russ & Daughters in New York. The first pizza I had in Italy, InterRailing aged 22. I finally understood it.I don't want to see the chaos and carnage of the kitchen – I just want to see the beautiful plate. When I went on a cookery show recently, I briefly saw behind the curtain. I think great cookery is a bit like jazz. I consider chefs to be comedians – they want a reaction. They're like stand-ups in that way. Perhaps that's why I have an empathy. When I see a chef at work, making something amazing, it makes me giggle. There's an art to food; I enjoy the not knowing what's gone into a dish – it's pleasing to me. It's the same as listening to music. I don't need to know who played what on a Clash album to love it. Part of the beauty is the ignorance. The oddness.Hairspray plays at the Shaftesbury Theatre: 020 7379 5399, www.hairspraythemusical.co.ukLittle Italy, 21 Frith Street, London W1 020 7 734 4737HistoryAn extension of the legendary Soho Bar Italia, started by the Polledri family 60 years ago, the restaurant, opened in 1995 and refurbished in 2005, offers the same authentic Italian hospitality – and dancing – in super-chic surroundings.Popular dishesGrilled wild fennel sausage from Sicily with sautéed Swiss chard (£25); linguine with fresh lobster, shallot and tomato sauce finished with brandy (£24.50); crispy tiramisu with mascarpone and coffee sauce. Three-course set dinner, £42.50.Who eats there?Chris Evans, Rod Stewart, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson; Francis Ford Coppola has been spottedOpenMonday-Saturday 12 noon-4am; Sunday 12 noon-11.30pm; bar Monday-Saturday 11am-3am; Sunday 11am-11.30pmRestaurantsFood & drinkCelebrityEva Wisemanguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:15:10 +0000

The cook and restaurateur guides us around the kitchen designed by her architect husbandI think this house is timeless. It seems totally contemporary – even though we bought it in 1983 – which is a tribute to my husband Richard, who designed it. Over the past 25 years only the art has really changed. He was working on the Lloyd's building in the City at the time, and someone said they saw more drawings for our staircase than the façade of Lloyd's.The house was originally two Victorian Chelsea townhouses before we joined them together. Above the kitchen there's a study where we used to sleep before our youngest son, Bo, 26, moved out. We converted his old room and moved up to the top floor. For the past five years we've had the place to ourselves.Our lives are very intertwined. Richard's interested in food because his Italian mother was a great cook. Sometimes he will ask me to look at a drawing, and I'll get him to taste a soup or a pasta. As I spend so much time cooking, I have always had a kitchen in the main space, just as we do at the River Café. It's the same in my partner Rose's apartment.The space is really like a piazza – it's as relaxing being by yourself reading a paper as when it's full of people coming for a party. My dream always was to have a house with a room large enough for a child to ride a bike around in. I'm lucky.I grew up in upstate New York in a small town. My father was a doctor and my mother was a librarian; they were both very socially conscious. Woody Guthrie was a symbol of hope for a different kind of America – a more socialist, compassionate country. His song "This Land is Your Land", which I often listen to here, always reminds me of my American roots.★The River Café Classic Italian Cook Book (£30, Michael Joseph) is out nowIN THE PICTURETEAPOT This was done by my stepson Ab when he was 12 (Richard has three sons from his first marriage, Ben, 46, Zad, 44, and Ab, 41 – and we have two, Roo, 34, and Bo, 26). It's a remarkable object, with its strong red and white patterns and the confident, courageous form. Ab is now a brilliant designer of houses, offices and exhibitions. I think it shows the promise of youthJOHNNY CASH PHOTOGRAPH I bought this for Richard's birthday a couple of years ago. It is not so much that it is Johnny Cash, though I love his music, but I bought it because it shows the comfort and closeness of a loving relationship. You are not sure who is comforting whom, and what they're thinking. Some people have said that from a distance it looks like Richard and me, but I think it is more about the emotion of the picture than the imagePHOTOGRAPH This is the family sailing with the architect Renzo Piano on the most beautiful sailboat he designed. He's a close friend and co-architect with Richard of the Centre Pompidou in Paris. We go sailing with him every summer in Sicily or Sardinia, and this is a precious week that our families spend together away from everything – talking, swimming and eatingPOTS These were created by Richard's mother, Dada Rogers, and when they are arranged all together they are reminiscent of a Morandi painting – simple and moving in their poetic formsBLACK AND WHITE PHOTOGRAPH That's me in Grosvenor Square in 1968 protesting against the Vietnam war. I was politically active when I came to London from New York to study at the London College of Printing. A lot of my friends came over so they didn't have to take part in the terrible warSCRABBLE For me this symbolises our summers in Tuscany in the farmhouse we rent, where we like to play a game called Singing Scrabble. The idea is that when you put a word down you have to think of a song with the word in and then sing it. It's great after a long meal when you've had too much grappa. The editor of the Guardian has a house next door and made me this for my birthday – Jay Jopling thought it was a work of art and asked who it was by!STATUE Richard bought me this pre-Colombian statue. We discovered Mexico together 20 years ago and we go every Christmas; we spend a week by the beach and a week exploring the Mayan templesSLICER In Italy everyone eats prosciutto and salami as antipasti throughout the day. It is great to come home and have a few slices instead of dinnerHomesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Alastair Campbell

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:15:10 +0000

The week when the Labour party learnt to love Peter Mandelson and the Sun learnt to hate Labour again. Peter's writing and oratorical skills have come on hugely since my old boss Richard Stott first hired him as a Sunday People columnist. "The only column written by more people than read it," my colleague David Bradshaw once said, as we toiled over another rewrite. Peter's best line in Monday's speech – his own – was the one making himself a metaphor for the party – if I can come back, so can Labour.But the informants who let him down about his cabinet recall also let him down on news of the Sun's switch to support VacuDave. Interesting signals from News International as to how the decision was made – it was Rupert Murdoch who ordered the switch in 1997 and one assumes he would have been able to stop this had he wanted to. But the buzz was that son James was the driving force.One thing for sure – Trevor Kavanagh, not best pleased when the decision to support us was made in '97, was a happy man. He joins my list of "fighters not quitters" for the way he kept going to see the day when the move back occurred.I do, however, think it less significant than the scale of coverage would indicate. The channels of media communication are now so much more diverse, and people's trust of the press much diminished. I told Peter that at one point after his barnstormer he was "trending" on Twitter. He appeared pleased, if unsure what it meant.I had a few speeches of my own last week, the usual mix of party, charity and stuff that pays the bills. On Thursday, I was speaking to something called the PM Society, which sounds like a new fan club for Peter but was in fact the Pharmaceutical Marketing Society's digital media awards.It's strange how most of us take some form of medication, generally to our advantage, and yet while the NHS continues to have a good image, the pharma industry does not.But there were some seriously good digital campaigns being rewarded, and the volume of entries was another indication of the changed "comms" landscape.The chosen charity for the evening was the Princess Royal Trust for Carers, whose chief executive Carole Cochrane told me over dinner that she was finding it impossible to find out what Tory policy on carers was, which worried them.She is not alone.Leukaemia Research was the chosen charity for a dinner in Jersey on Friday. It was my first trip there and it had been in the local press that I was due on the island. Which led to a couple of old friends, one of whom I last saw more than 30 years ago when busking in Brussels, tracking me down.He was amazed I remembered him. Given how much we drank back then, so was I.I also renewed acquaintance with the island's governor Andrew Ridgway, someone I last met when he was serving with the military in Kosovo. We reminisced about the way we had had to grip the communications of a conflict which could never have been lost militarily but which could have been lost by public opinion in the Nato democracies. It is why hearts and minds campaigns at home and abroad are so important in the current Afghanistan conflict.He was of the view that if public opinion leads us to pull out too soon, future generations will pay a heavy price.At the dinner I was on the lookout for some of the 50 donors we want to give 50k to the charity for our Big 5-0 anniversary next year. Fundraising for the big bucks has been harder in the past year, but sales are going well for a special audience with national treasure Stephen Fry.I might try next year for impersonator Alistair McGowan, who was my interviewee on Radio 4's Chain Reaction on Wednesday. It was fascinating to watch him go from voice to voice, sometimes within the same sentence.In one of the best edited-out bits, he went from Sven-Goran Eriksson to Fabio Capello by saying you start with Swedish lilt, add a hint of Italian, then make the sound of straining while trying to go to the loo, and out pops Fabio. It's true!I was chuffed to get one of the best laughs of the evening (mixed with politically savvy applause) when, as Alistair explained that he could not "do" Cameron, I asked if he thought it was because he stood for nothing. He said he had tried and tried but "all that comes out is an upperclass whisper".It will be interesting to see Andrew Marr's approach to VacuDave this morning. I thought his quizzing of Gordon about blogosphere health rumours was really low. Cameron by contrast has been getting an easy media ride, and of course the Sun have made it easier.Marr might also reflect that whatever run-ins there have been, the Labour government is likely to be a more benign force for the Beeb than a Murdoch-Tory alliance.As someone called Ben West said on my Facebook page on Thursday: "What's darkly amusing is the fact that the BBC seems to be so in thrall to Murdoch when he'd have them for breakfast if a Tory government gave him half a chance. "A little like the hen cheering on the fox as the fox attacks the guard dog."No My Week can be complete without watching Burnley FC, which is where I spent yesterday. We have started the season better than some expected but our away form – defeats of 2-0, 3-0, 4-0 then 5-0 – suggests a worrying trend.I said on my weekly column for AOL's Footballfanhouse website that if the trend continues we will lose our last away game 20-0. But hey – we are in the Premier League, we beat Man U, we won again yesterday (2-1 against Birmingham), Peter is in the cabinet, the Irish voted yes… life is a long game and VacuDave should not count his hens or indeed his chickens yet.Alastair Campbell is chairman of fundraising for Leukaemia Research. An Audience with Stephen Fry is at London's Criterion theatre, 18 October. Call 020 7685 1022.The Campbell CVThe Life Born Keighley, Yorkshire, May 1957, son of Donald and Elizabeth. Went to Gonville and Caius, Cambridge. Lives in London with Fiona Millar and their three children.The Work Journalist for various publications including the Tavistock Times and Forum. Political editor at the Mirror. Tony Blair's spokesman from 1994, becoming his official spokesman when Labour came to power in 1997. He was Blair's director of communications and strategy from 2001-2003. Published The Blair Years (2007) and a novel, All In The Mind (2008).Alastair CampbellLabourguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Gavin Turk

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:15:10 +0000

The Young British Artist on his new show at Tate Modern, a hilarious lunch with fellow artists and his upcoming work with fairy talesI've been sulking for much of the week, because my scooter – my beautiful scooter – has been stolen again from outside my house in east London. I have the privilege, at least, of being able to use the national press as a big notice-board for getting the scooter back. So here goes: it is a black Vespa 50 with a GT sticker in place of the usual GB version – number plate LK05CWX.If you have seen it, please contact the Observer or, indeed, the police. The stickers are an artwork I originally made for an Art Car Boot Fair in 2007. The conceit at the time was to sell 12 signed and stickered old dented car boots (literally a car boot sale, geddit?) from the back of my van – a van that has also been sadly stolen.My sculpture "Pop" is in the show Pop Life, Art in a Material World, which has just opened at Tate Modern – not yet stolen, as far as I can tell. The show has, it seems, been pushing back the edge of the cultural envelope a bit too far.The police's obscene publications squad has been on a visit (encouraged by some newspaper coverage apparently) and had to close down part of the show, a red room containing a text and an appropriated photograph of naked 10-year-old Brooke Shields, taken originally in the Seventies by ad photographer Gary Gross. Artist Richard Prince photographed this photograph in 1983 and presented it as an artwork with the title Spiritual America with a text that explained the image as a metaphor for America.Since then, Prince has become one of the most celebrated artists of his generation and the artwork has been shown throughout the world, appearing in countless art publications. So I was really surprised when this rather regressive action occurred and wondered – forgive my cynicism – whether it wasn't slightly pleasing to the Tate's marketing department.The artists' lunch was a hilarious affair. Jeff Koons, Maurizio Cattelan, Tracey Emin and myself found ourselves rather self-consciously seated in the public Tate restaurant.This perhaps inspired the rather strange behaviour over lunch, which instead of consisting of intelligent conversation with our contemporaries – perish the thought – ended up in a performance artwork.Our complementary show catalogues – the catalogue has now also been withdrawn; missing items are obviously a theme of the week – were passed around in a private social experiment of book signing as we all (initiated as I remember by Maurizio Cattelan) got each other to sign or doodle in each other's books. Something of an anthropological curiosity to put it kindly, I'd imagine, for the rest of the public looking on.The show traces the legacy of Andy Warhol's kind of pop art through various different tendrils. I was pleased to be included, even if the room where the work is showing is titled "the almost infamous YBA's" – which is a bit of a puzzle. (Should we feel insulted? Not that I want to add to my sulking…)The works of mine in the show are from the early Nineties. I have since then made many pieces which even more directly reference Warhol, including a 2m sq me as Andy, a camouflage self-portrait wearing a super spiky Andy fright wig.But this work didn't make it into the show. The irony about the piece which they did include is that it is addressing a cultural preoccupation with nostalgia – which has now become some of the stuff of nostalgia itself. Last week also took me down to the Essex-Suffolk coastline to visit various sites that have fallen under my gaze as the so-called "Lead Artist" for the contemporary phenomenon of an art-inspired "regeneration" project. We could call this the "Gormley Effect", an attempt to bring culture and creativity to places and sites that have been targeted for regeneration.A buzz word that keeps being mentioned is "sustainability" which sometimes seems so distant from the market-driven global art world. My challenge is to balance this local community action with my knowledge of international art "dialogues". All the while without pandering to the government desire to turn the whole of Britain into a giant tourist theme park. That'll be simple then...To Knebworth, on Friday, for a meeting about a possible House of Fairy Tales residency next summer. The House of Fairy Tales is a project that my partner, Deborah Curtis, and I set up to reinvent real, live, active experiences for children and young people in this world of computers, health and safety and the aforementioned national theme park.This year, we have taken our travelling art circus all over the country introducing thousands of families to – we hope – the absurd, surreal and catchingly playful. This beautiful venue of Knebworth is ripe for reinvention as a magical world of play and discovery because Robbie Williams, Metallica et al have embedded it in the public consciousness as a rock venue for the masses (this association will no doubt go down very well with the teenagers).Unfortunately, I forgot that I was supposed to be meeting some Korean collectors at my studio that morning – I trust they managed to cope with their disappointment at not being shown the art by the artist himself. And I just made it back to London in time to help judge the Saatchi New Sensations, showing in London at Rochelle school, Arnold Circus, east London, where we discussed, as you do, the nuances and agendas of emerging artists.Deborah and I might ask some of them to come and take part in our next event at the New Art Gallery Walsall at Halloween. Artists need to interact directly with the general public, at least sometimes – ideally, it's about loving the whole audience not just the art world. Perhaps the highlight of my cultural week was an evening spent visiting the newly opened Museum of Everything space in Primrose Hill, a refreshing display of unfashionable work by "outsider" artists and the opening of Victor Wynd's Last Tuesday Society shop with its museum of curios for sale in the basement. And then there was the "psychological" installation of artworks at the Freud Museum in Camden, north London. Consider this tour of quirky shows a great starter for the overblown medieval banquet otherwise known as the Frieze Art Fair.The Turk CVThe Life Born in Guildford in 1967. Attended Royal College of Art. Lives in London with his partner, artist Deborah Curtis, and their children The Work From the start of his career, the focus has been himself. At the Royal College of Art, he received no degree because his final show contained only a blue heritage plaque to himself, though it provoked the interest of Charles Saatchi, and a leading place among the Young British Artists.Tate ModernFrieze art fairJeff KoonsTracey EminAndy WarholGavin Turkguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Iain Dale

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:15:10 +0000

The leading political blogger on trying – and failing – to become a Tory candidateAll my friends and family think I have lost my marbles. "Why on earth would anyone want to be an MP?" they chorus. They don't understand that for some of us politics is like a virus. From time to time, we try to cure ourselves but it never quite goes away.The expenses scandal made me more determined than ever to have another go. I got angry, not just over the fraudsters who have shattered any remaining trust which existed between politicians and the voters, but because there are some bloody good people in politics who genuinely try to do their best for their constituents and certainly aren't in it for the money.So into the bearpit I plunged – into the open primary (well, strictly speaking, a caucus) in Bracknell where voters of any political persuasion could turn up and pass judgment on who they wanted to stand as their Conservative candidate at the next election.I've spent the last three weeks trying to get to know local issues and local personalities and get my head round what makes Bracknell tick. It's normally unheard of to campaign like this in advance of a selection, but the new politics requires a new approach. So I launched a campaign website, designed a colourful leaflet and garnered local and national endorsements, including those of Boris Johnson, a Labour MP and a Lib Dem blogger – all for a Conservative selection.The Bracknell media seemed to regard me as a bit exotic. The expression "openly gay" occurred a little too frequently for my liking and I tried not to get too annoyed about the reference to my "current partner", who has been my "current partner" for the last 14 years and my "civil partner" for the last 16 months. When journalist Jan Moir wrote her hateful words about the late Boyzone star Stephen Gately in the Daily Mail on Friday, provoking an online storm of protest – some Moir words: "Whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one"; "…if we are going to be honest, we would have to admit that the circumstances surrounding his death are more than a little sleazy" – I can't help but admit that a wry smile passed my lips.Two weeks ago, I was described in the Mail's diary column as "overtly gay". As you can imagine, that was a real help in my efforts to be Bracknell's next MP. The Mail diary objected to the fact that I had encouraged readers of the PinkNews website to register to vote at the open primary. "Isn't it charming how homosexuals rally like-minded chaps to their cause?" it spat.Normally, I wouldn't give two hoots, but this was the second time the Mail had done something like this to me. I decided to refer it to the Press Complaints Commission and the inquiry is ongoing. What is it with the Mail that it wants to alienate 10% of the population? When Jan Moir and I wrote columns for the Telegraph I always regarded her as a top columnist. Maybe it's something they put in the tea at the Mail which turns perfectly normal people into ranting homophobes.Until last week, I had never won an award in my life. Always the bridesmaid. But last week it turned out differently when I went to the Editorial Intelligence Comment Awards and picked up online commentator of the year. I reckoned I was in with a good shout when the event's host, Peter York, gave me a longer introduction than my co-nominees Guido Fawkes and Chris Dillow.I hadn't really prepared anything to say in the event of my winning, which I later regretted. I must be the first award winner in history not to thank anyone. Instead, I broke the habit of a lifetime and got all serious, mentioning the role of bloggers and tweeters in highlighting the disgraceful injunction brought against the Guardian by law firm Carter-Ruck.I may be best known as a blogger, but my day job is publishing a monthly magazine called Total Politics. I do the odd interview for the magazine and last week I got to interview defence secretary Bob Ainsworth in his MoD office. Rather to my surprise, he made quite an impression on me. I saw a man struggling to do his best in a job which he was surprised to get in the first place.But I wondered how much he was being shielded by his officials. He had just come back from Afghanistan. Surely, I asked, he must have been constantly berated by armed services personnel over lack of equipment? Not a bit of it, he reckoned. That must be because you're talking to the wrong people, I countered. He quietly pointed out that he made a point of sitting down with squaddies in the canteen and quizzing them over their concerns. Lack of equipment was not one of them, he reckoned. Hmmm. Who to believe…Later that day, I encountered former Commons Speaker Michael Martin over dinner. He had just been introduced into the House of Lords. "Ah, you're a very fair blogger," he said. Clearly he hadn't read some of the stronger opinions I have expressed about his Speakership.On Thursday morning, I was walking out of 4 Millbank, the building near Parliament which houses all the political broadcasters. There at the entrance stood the magnificent figure of showbiz agent Wendy Bailey. We exchanged the usual mwah, mwah and I turned to shake the hand of the man she was with. "Nice to meet you," I said, being a polite sort of chap. As I was doing so, I thought to myself: "I know you from somewhere." And just as I thought that, Wendy said: "This is Patrick Magee." Oh. My. God. I was shaking hands with the man who 25 years ago had tried to bomb Margaret Thatcher and her government into oblivion.I made a hasty exit feeling decidedly sick. I still do.Saturday night, and Bracknell Tories have decided on Philip Lee as their candidate. I was voted out in the fourth ballot but many congratulations to Philip. He is a worthy winner. Naturally I'm gutted.MPs' expensesIain Daleguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds