The Guardian news (unofficial)

2021-11-13 12:20:31 Megaphones, diagrams and drink: the making of Marco van Basten | Arrigo Sacchi

Former Milan coach Arrigo Sacchi explains in this extract from his new book how he turned a Dutch ‘snob’ into a greatMarco van Basten had a very particular character. He was meteoropathic, he could literally change with the weather – a difference in air pressure or temperature seemed to provoke an injury. But he was also a brilliant player whom I wouldn’t have swapped even for the best striker of the modern era – the Brazilian Ronaldo.He was a good guy and an exceptional champion whose talent was truly unique. In the beginning, I worked hard to make him understand that we Italians were not primitive beasts. If he had a callus on his foot, he went to a Dutch podiatrist. If he had toothache, he went to a Dutch dentist. If he needed a haircut, he went to a Dutch barber. Continue reading...

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#Milan #Football #Sport #Netherlands Open / Comment

2021-11-13 12:20:26 Black Caps happy under radar but T20 World Cup final spot no surprise

For the past five years, New Zealand have been the best and most effective all-format team in cricketAt this point, the most surprising thing about New Zealand making it to the T20 World Cup final is that anyone is still surprised by it at all. This is the team that reached the final of the 2015 World Cup, the final of the 2019 World Cup (which they lost, of course, because of a clause in the small print), who won the inaugural World Test Championship, and who are currently ranked as the best side in the world in Test and ODI cricket. For the past five years, they’ve been the best, and most effective, all-format team in the sport. And yet, flick back three weeks to the tournament previews and you’ll find that they were sixth in the betting.India were favourites, then England, Pakistan, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. Given the way we all talk about them, “and New Zealand” is maybe what they ought to rename the side. Always an afterthought, everybody’s second favourites. The New Zealanders, you guess, are perfectly happy with that. There used to be a theory, back in the 2000s, when the All Blacks always blew up in the knockout rounds of the Rugby World Cup, that the team couldn’t handle the pressure that came with being favourites. It’s not a problem the Black Caps have had to worry about, even while they’ve been beating everyone else so often. Continue reading...

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#T20_World_Cup_2021 #New_Zealand_cricket_team #Australia_cricket_team #T20_World_Cup #Twenty20 Open / Comment

2021-11-13 12:20:21 Kane emerges from soul-sickness to rediscover his thrilling, urgent best | Barney Ronay

England’s captain has cut a disconsolate figure so far this season but against Albania he was almost comically goodWell, that seemed to go pretty well. Play a little further forward? Let me see what I can rustle up. As Harry Kane rampaged around the Wembley pitch, traumatising an increasingly desolate Albanian central defence, you could almost hear Antonio Conte nodding and snorting, one hand thrust indignantly into his blazer pocket. You see? This is what happens when we remove the menace of condiments.Kane was almost comically good in the first half of this World Cup qualifier. He was cartoonish, outsized. He had seven shots at goal. He scored a perfect hat-trick. He made another one. His hat-trick goal was a pirouetting aerial scissor kick, the final significant act in England’s 5-0 victory. Continue reading...

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#England #World_Cup_2022_qualifiers #Gareth_Southgate #Football #Sport Open / Comment

2021-11-13 12:20:17 ‘No sharks but I’ve seen porpoises’: the rebirth of the River Thames

A trip down London’s famous waterway reveals many signs of life – but is this another false dawn?The Thames shark hunt begins on a swirling golden brown river, where high above Battersea power station soars a speck that may be another awesome predator: a peregrine falcon.“I haven’t seen a shark but I’ve seen porpoises up the Thames and there were a couple of whales last year,” says Alfie Gardner, captain of one of the Thames Clipper Uber Boats that whisk commuters and tourists up and downriver. “We see a lot of seals. Near enough every day.” Continue reading...

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#Rivers #Sharks #London #Marine_life #Environment Open / Comment

2021-11-13 12:20:14 Jon Ronson and Adam Curtis on the culture wars: ‘How has this happened? Where is the escape hatch?’

As Ronson’s BBC podcast Things Fell Apart begins, the documentary-makers and old friends discuss conspiracy theories, the problem of ‘activist journalists’ and what happened to Ceaușescu’s socksJon Ronson and Adam Curtis became friends in the late 1990s, having bonded over their shared interests in power, society and the stories we tell about ourselves. Curtis, 66, is a Bafta-winning documentary film-maker whose credits include The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear and HyperNormalisation. His most recent six-part series, Can’t Get You Out of My Head, draws on the history of psychology and politics to show how we got to where we are today. Ronson, 54, is a US-based Welsh writer and journalist whose books include 2015’s So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, about social media brutality and the history of public shaming. In recent years, Ronson has turned to podcasting, investigating the porn industry in The Butterfly Effect and its follow-up The Last Days of August.His forthcoming BBC podcast, Things Fell Apart, is about the roots of the culture wars and the ways the present is echoed in the past. Over eight episodes, he talks to individuals caught up in ideological conflicts, conspiracy theories and moral panics. These include Alice Moore, the wife of a fundamentalist minister and unexpected culture war instigator who campaigned to remove textbooks containing liberal material from schools, and Kelly Michaels, a daycare worker and victim of the “satanic panic” who was wrongfully imprisoned in 1988 by a New Jersey court for child abuse (the verdict was overturned in 1993). Continue reading...

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#Culture #Jon_Ronson #Adam_Curtis #Television_&_radio #Books Open / Comment

2021-11-13 12:20:10 Olivia Colman: ‘Portraying a murderer? It was less pressure than playing the Queen’

From supporting parts on TV to Hollywood stardom to her darkest role yet: the Oscar winner reveals why even the toughest jobs can’t compare to her role in The Crown Olivia Colman’s husband has written his first TV drama, a true crime series starring his wife, and I have so many questions about this that she says she can bring him downstairs to join in if I like. Ah, the possibilities when interviewing someone over Zoom. “Eddy!” she shouts up the stairs, while I peer into their comfy sitting room, somewhere deep in the English countryside (period fireplace, bookshelves). “I’m slagging you off!” she shouts with glee at him, followed by a distant grunt.We carry on alone, accompanied only by one of their dogs, the excitable Alfred, Lord Waggyson, and a child who briefly pops into the room to a big grin from mum. Colman, blessed with the friendliest, giggliest face on British telly, familiar from so many hit shows, somehow feels as if she belongs in my home, as if we are already friends. This, as we will find out, is something of a problem now she’s an international megastar. Continue reading...

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#Television #Olivia_Colman #Film #Celebrity #Culture Open / Comment

2021-11-13 12:20:06 Cop26 live: third draft text published after climate talks overrun

After passing the original deadline on Friday night, a new draft text has been published and will be discussed by nationsOne key area is paragraph 36, which refers to fossil fuels. Here’s the old version:36. Calls upon Parties to accelerate the development, deployment and dissemination of technologies and the adoption of policies for the transition towards low-emission energy systems, including by rapidly scaling up clean power generation and accelerating the phaseout of unabated coal power and of inefficient subsidies for fossil fuels;36. Calls upon Parties to accelerate the development, deployment and dissemination of technologies, and the adoption of policies, to transition towards low emission energy systems, including by rapidly scaling up the deployment of clean power generation and energy efficiency measures, including accelerating efforts towards the phase-out of unabated coal power and inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, recognizing the need for support towards a just transition; Continue reading...

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#Cop26 #Climate_crisis #Glasgow #World_news #Environment Open / Comment

2021-11-13 12:00:07 Covid live news: Melbourne vaccine mandate sparks protest; Boris Johnson warns of ‘storm clouds’ in Europe

Thousands protest as Victoria requires construction workers to be jabbed; vulnerable Britons told ‘this is the moment’ to get boostersSee all our coronavirus coverageA US court has upheld a decision to put a hold on Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for companies with more than 100 workers, rejecting a legal challenge from his administration. A three-member panel of the 5th US circuit court of appeals in New Orleans affirmed its ruling despite the Biden administration’s claim that halting the vaccine mandate could lead to dozens or even hundreds of deaths, according to Reuters. Continue reading...

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#Coronavirus #Infectious_diseases #World_news #Vaccines_and_immunisation #Society Open / Comment

2021-11-13 11:00:14 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows by Ai Weiwei – an assault on the censors

The memoirs of the artist branded a troublemaker by the Chinese regime are also a powerful tribute to his fatherThe best measure of the artist Ai Weiwei was made not by any critic but by an interrogator working for China’s state security forces. It came 51 days into his imprisonment in 2011 on trumped-up tax evasion charges. The agent “understood that I wasn’t an evil person”, Ai relates in his autobiography, “just a troublemaker”. “Everything I did was basically a form of dadaism,” the agent told him. “Cultural subversion was my speciality.”The artist first became “a nail in the eye, a spike in the flesh, gravel in the shoe” of the Chinese Communist party when he orchestrated the gathering and publication of the names of 4,851 children who died in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Their deaths, Ai writes, were a direct consequence of corruption and the unsafe construction of school buildings. Continue reading...

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#Autobiography_and_memoir #Art_and_design_books #Politics_books #Books #Culture Open / Comment

2021-11-13 00:40:07 Twenty photographs of the week

Cop26 in Glasgow, a migrant caravan in Mexico, refugees trapped on the border between Belarus and Poland and floods in Bangkok: the most striking images from around the world this week Continue reading...

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#Photography #Art_and_design #Culture #World_news #Coronavirus Open / Comment