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| by John
Minihan, "the man who shot Beckett",
so-called because of his uniquely
personal, black-and-white portraits of
the Irish playwright. Of the 20 works in
this quiet side-show, part of the Celtic
Heart Festival, the three of Beckett are
magnetic character studies among more
informal portraits of Irish writers.
During Beckett's Waiting for Godot
rehearsals at Riverside Studios in 1984,
Minihan followed him into rehearsals - a
tall, slender, aquiline figure, hands
behind his back and one long thumb
upturned - and produced close-up head
shots revealing the elegant beauty and
character in his extraordinary face; he
even drew a slightly bemused smile. The
unmistakable crest of badger hair frames
small eyes as alert as a suspicious
small mammal's, tuned to the mysteries
of human existence. After rehearsals,
Minihan stopped him outside, wrapped in
a cool suede coat, satchel over one
shoulder, and the writer projects a
resigned smile onto a photographer
almost as intense as his subject. A year
later, Minihan's self-portrait on a
Paris street while Waiting For Beckett,
reveals the anxiety of hoping for the
perfect shot. Like his portraits of
Beckett, the image fits his credo: "Good
photography is good literature." |
| Gore Vidal's
novel published in 1948 was one of the
first to speak openly of homosexulaity
in the USA. Sixty years later this
highly recommendable novel is still a
good read even the the theme no longer
shocks most Western minds. |
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'Death in Kovalam' by John Francis Kinsella
Tom Barton, a City mortgage broker, arrives
in Kovalam, India, after abandoning his business in
the wake of the subprime crisis. In his luxury hotel he meets Emma, the wife
of Stephen Parkly, the CEO of a London bank,
West Mercian Finance. Stephen Parkly falls gravely ill with a
mysterious infection and is hospitalized in
a local clinic.
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The disease is diagnosed as
cholera, panic sets in when tourists start to
fall ill with the deadly infection, just as the
tourist season is getting into full swing. TFor all
details please contact:
sumpinein@gmail.com |
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House prices
'won't recover until 2015'
says UK expert |
| US
central bank accused of unleashing an inflation
shock that will rock financial markets, says
London Daily Telegraph Barclays Capital has
advised clients to batten down the hatches for a
worldwide financial storm, warning that the US
Federal Reserve has allowed the inflation genie
out of the bottle and let its credibility fall
"below zero". "We're in a nasty environment,"
said Tim Bond, the bank's chief equity
strategist. "There is an inflation shock
underway. This is going to be very negative for
financial assets. We are going into tortoise
mood and are retreating into our shell.
Investors will do well if they can preserve
their wealth." |
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| Barclays Capital said in its closely-watched
Global Outlook that US headline inflation would
hit 5.5pc by August and the Fed will have to
raise interest rates six times by the end of
next year to prevent a wage-spiral. If it
hesitates, the bond markets will take matters
into their own hands. "This is the first test
for central banks in 30 years and they have
fluffed it. They have zero credibility, and the
Fed is negative if that's possible. It has lost
all credibility," said Mr Bond.
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EURO2008 |
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Germany and Spain for the
final |
| Spanish players warm
up in preparation for the final against German
in the EURO 2008 final in Viennawhich will
watched by hundreds of millions of fans the
world over
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The Independent New
York Times will be pleased to receive your
articles and comments. Please contact our
editorial desk at the following address
sumpinein@gmail.com
and we shall endeavour to answer you promptly. |
| The
Movement for the
Emancipation
of the
Niger Delta
has claimed responsibility for the attack on an
oil platform in the Niger Delta. this little
known
militant
indigenous people's movement is dedicated to
armed struggle against the exploitation and
oppression of the people of Niger Delta and the
degradation of the natural environment by
foreign multinational corporations involved in
the extraction of
oil
in the Niger Delta and the Federal Government of
Nigeria. MEND has been linked to many attacks on
foreign owned
petroleum
companies in
Nigeria
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Rehearsal for Iran
attack? |
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U.S.
officials say Israel carried
out a large military
exercise this month that
appeared to be a rehearsal
for a potential bombing
attack on Iran's nuclear
facilities, The New York
Times reported on Friday.
Citing unidentified American
officials, the newspaper
said more than 100 Israeli
F-16 and F-15 fighters took
part in the manoeuvres over
the eastern Mediterranean
and Greece in the first week
of June. It said the
exercise appeared to be an
effort to focus on
long-range strikes and
illustrates the seriousness
with which Israel views
Iran's nuclear program.
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| A £4 billion masterplan to save
London's Battersea Power Station before it
collapses was unveiled today. The
project includes a 1,000ft-high
glass tower - taller than Canary
Wharf - next to the instantly
recognisable brick landmark. The Irish developers, the third
owners of the power station since it was
decommissioned in 1983, describe the
scheme as "the most exciting real estate
proposal ever to come forward in
Britain." Its most radical element is the
transparent canopy over the office
development officially known as the
Ecodome, but already dubbed "The
Funnel". The Funnel, the brainchild of
Uruguayan architect Rafael Vinoly, will
be topped with a huge glass chimney and
will provide its own "natural" air
conditioning to the development, hugely
reducing its electricity needs. If it gets the
go ahead, the Funnel will be higher than
any structure now standing in London
when it is completed in 2019. It will tower above the
250m plus One
Canada Square at Canary Wharf. The
developers insist that the transparent
dome, to be made of a similar material
to that covering the Eden Project in
Cornwall, is not a building but a "solar
driven natural ventilation system," the
biggest of its kind in the world. It
will cover a 2.5 million square foot
office development which will have only
a third of the energy needs of
conventional offices. |
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Will they both share the same fate?
Today almost 100 years after the Titanic
hit an iceberg the world's banking
system is in perilous waters |
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The 2012 Olympics were
plunged into a major cash crisis today as the
firm building the athletes' village admitted it
could not raise the money. Australian construction company Lend Lease
said the credit crunch meant it could not find
its £450 million share. It means that at least £200 million of public
money is being poured in immediately to carry
out work on the Stratford site. If the credit
crunch continues the taxpayer could be landed
with the entire £1 billion bill for the village.
The Olympic Delivery Authority will almost
certainly have to raid its £2.7 billion
contingency fund. The village will house 17,000 athletes and
officials during the Olympics before being
converted to 3,500 homes for rent or sale after
the Games. |
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| The Aral Sea is
disappearing even faster than previously
thought. Since the 1960s, the sea has been
drying up as a result of poor management of
irrigation channels that steal water from rivers
feeding it. Once the area of Ireland, it is now
a quarter that size and broken into two
fragments - the North Aral Sea and South Aral
Sea. Only the smaller North Aral has been
earmarked for rescue and several dams to stem
water loss from it have been build since the
mid-1990s. Meanwhile, the South Aral has been
abandoned, and as it dries up it is wreaking
havoc on the environment. It is leaving behind
vast salt plains, transforming the climate with
hotter summers and colder winters, destroying
what remains of local fisheries, and producing
massive dust storms that spread disease. Peter
Zavialov from the Shirshov Institute of
Oceanology in Moscow and his team have completed
the first hydrographic survey of the South Aral
since the early 1990s. Zavialov's survey shows
it has dropped to 30.5 metres, 3.5 metres more
than predicted. |
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Echoes of
Great Depression says The Times
of London |
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Spot the bubble -
Shanghai Composite Index
2004-2008 by Bloomberg
27 June. The main
Chinese index is looking
grim as it continues its
long plunge as the
Olympics approach. It's
normal, after all who
buys Chinese goods - the
USA stupid! |
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The Dow Jones
dived a further 350 points
Thursday, giving America’s key
economic benchmark its worst
June performance since the Great
Depression, as oil hit a record
and analysts said that the
fallout from the credit crunch
was far from over. With crude
hitting a new intraday high at
$142.99 a barrel, the market
grew increasingly worried about
the impact of surging
commodities prices on consumers.
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Britain's
biggest mortgage
lender disclosed
yesterday that
it has almost £5
billion of
problem home
loans on its
books as it gave
a downbeat
forecast for
this year's
housing market.
HBOS predicted a
9 per cent fall
in property
prices this
year, up from
its previous
predictions of a
“mid-single
digit” decline,
and wrote down
£100 million on
its own
investments in
the troubled
housebuilding
sector.
The price of a
crude oil in New
York barreled to
a record of
$139.64 as Libya
threatened to
cut its output
and Chakib
Khelil, the Opec
president, said
that oil could
hit $170 a
barrel over the
summer if, as
expected, the
European Central
Bank increases
interest rates,
in a move that
would further
depress the
dollar. |
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Mandela rocks whilst Mugabe kills |
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Is the Bradofr & Bingley
about to plunge into a Northern Rock disaster
situation? |
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| People
displaced by fighting in Abyei in
southern Sudan wait for assistance and
aid supplies in the village of Agok May
21, 2008. http://www.sudantribune.com |
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