In Jewelery

September 3rd, 2010  by Ethan

But for Saatchi & Saatchi, the London advertising agency founded 40 years ago next week, you mightn't be reading this page. Indeed, there just mightn't have been an Independent at all – something in the time-space continuum could've gone slip-sliding away. That's the way The Independent's original 1980s' founding Gang of Three – Andreas Whittam Smith, Matthew Symonds and Stephen Glover – tell it, anyway.

When they originally conceived the paper, Maurice (now Lord) Saatchi was one of just two people Whittam Smith rang in 1985 for a sanity check. (The other was a banker, of course.) Maurice put him on to John Perriss, Saatchi's media director (later to head the Saatchi Group's new media-buying agency Zenith). In no time, the three had a Saatchi team of 16 – the agency had just lost a big newspaper account and, according to Symonds, wanted to have a high-profile new one – and a deal. The deal was basically that S&S would help them to raise the money they needed from investors on a "no win, no fee" basis (if it worked, they could start spending on advertising). Saatchi would do research among potential readers and advertisers to help develop their pitch, and they'd rehearse and sharpen the presentation. They also said, crucially: "We'll come with you, if you like." "We walked in," recalls Whittam Smith, "with the glamour of Saatchi beside us; it really helped."

"It's doubtful whether we'd have raised the money without their imprimatur – it helped get brokers and bankers on board," agrees Stephen Glover. Glamour? Imprimatur? Since when did an advertising agency have glamour (creativity, humour or charm, certainly) or confer an imprimatur? Since when did verbally precise men such as the Telegraph-trained Indy Three talk like this about the tough business of persuading the City's hard-nosed economic men to cough up the money.

The story of how an advertising agency counter-jumped and leapfrogged over its sector to become the nation's most glamorous and weirdly influential organisation for nearly a decade is an extraordinary English folk tale. It's about the way we were in the 1980s, and to understand both Saatchi & Saatchi's substantive achievement and its shamanistic, glamorous side, you have to remember just one basic precept of advertising: perceptions are everything.

And you have to start with the curious, rather equivocal role and status of advertising agencies in the 1950s and early 1960s. Advertising was not quite a gents' profession, not quite an art. But certainly it employed gentlefolk and artists. The gentlefolk were mostly "suits", the account-handler types who dealt with the clients and presented the work. The artists – visual and verbal ones, famously dreaming of their novels, film scripts and first Cork Street shows – did the work. An emerging group of researchers thought about consumers and their habits (one, Mark Abrams, at the long-gone agency London Press Exchange, wrote the key report on "The Teenage Consumer" in 1959, outlining the potential of youth as a new consumer group). And rather more pragmatic types – the media buyers – did the deals with media owners. All under one roof.

Set up like this, a "big" London advertising agency would employ around 300 people in somewhere tolerably genteel, ideally Mayfair W1, or at least Mid-Town Holborn or Southampton Row – no raffish Soho or edgy Shoreditch then. Marcoms (a later word for the sector) weren't exactly a power in the land back then – and the "creative industries" sector was 30 years away.

drive from www.independent.co.uk

Posted in Media

September 2nd, 2010  by Ethan

Information is a diet we thrive on. In the internet age, having the world at our fingertips feels as vital as food and water. But in our quest to know everything about anything, we've lost touch with something closer to home: our own bodies.

Whatever size or shape you are, an information overload of weight-loss fads, exercise crazes and celebrity-endorsed diets has made it harder for an individual to work out the needs of his or her own body. Factor in our obsession with the "ideal physique" and it's no wonder there's confusion whenever we look in the mirror.

My body has always been a mystery. I don't diet, work out or watch what I eat, but apart from a brief dalliance with whaledom (aka pregnancy), I've always been slim. I've weighed eight stone since I was 21 and, well into my thirties, nothing's changed.
At 5ft 4in, I'm a healthy weight and any BMI calculator will tell you the same, but it's hard to convince well-meaning friends and relatives that a desk-bound writer (with an aerobics aversion and an unquenchable passion for pints) isn't secretly crash dieting or enslaved to bulimia.

I harboured a sneaking suspicion that my hectic 21st-century lifestyle was responsible for my waistline, but apart from the odd magazine snippet about how washing up burns the same number of calories you'd encounter in a Kit Kat finger, I've never been able to substantiate the theory.

When I was offered the chance to gather such evidence, I jumped at it. I was invited to trial a Ki Fit lifestyle armband, a gadget using sensors to measure continuously motion, steps, body temperature, heat flux and galvanic skin response.

The technology was developed for clinical environments, to check that intensive-care patients were consuming the correct number of calories, but now it's available as an informational tool, designed to help people to lose weight, bulk up, or simply gain access to personalised data that can help them understand their bodies.

As with all fitness-related gadgetry, the Ki Fit comes at a price. It retails at £99.99 and there is a further £10.88 monthly website subscription. The good news is that this membership gives you access to a team of human beings: nutritionists and trainers who answer questions and offer advice. Detailed fitness plans and feedback come with an additional price tag.

I wore the band around the clock on my left arm, where it monitored my daily calorie burn, activity (including the ironing), number of steps and sleep quality. At the end of each day I plugged it into my computer via the USB port, downloading the data onto the Ki Fit website, much like synching an iPod.

Then I could see, plotted on a graph, exactly what my body had been up to over the past 24 hours, with clearly defined spikes showing my most energetic outbursts. The only manual hassle is inputting your meals, which gets tiresome and a tad obsessive.

drive from www.independent.co.uk

Posted in Articles

September 1st, 2010  by Ethan

A prominent backer of Ed Balls in Labour's leadership contest today endorses David Miliband as his second choice, in what will be seen as a setback for Ed Miliband's campaign.

The senior Labour MP Geoffrey Robinson, one of Gordon Brown's closest allies, admits that Mr Balls trails the Miliband brothers in the Labour race and urges David Miliband to make Mr Balls shadow Chancellor if he wins, and to hand his brother another senior role such as shadow Home Secretary.

Mr Balls is unlikely to endorse David Miliband in public – a move which would amount to an admission of defeat and could harm his own level of support. But Mr Robinson's public support for David rather than Ed Miliband is highly significant, and Mr Balls is aware of Mr Robinson's decision. Mr Balls was a colleague of Ed Miliband for several years, and tension between the two former Brown aides is laid bare by Mr Robinson's decision to give his second preference to David Miliband rather than to his brother.

Writing in The Independent, Mr Robinson says that David Miliband has "the strength of character for the job" but suggests that his brother lacks the necessary experience to lead the Labour Party.

The former Treasury minister proposes a share-out of the top Opposition jobs, arguing that doing so would keep all three figures in frontline politics. There is speculation in Labour circles that David Miliband and Mr Balls might both refuse to serve under Ed Miliband if he wins the leadership.

Second preference votes could prove crucial when the result is announced on 25 September because a close contest between the two Milibands is expected. Yesterday Mr Balls likened the media coverage of the contest to a "soap opera" about the Milibands, saying this does not do "justice to the issues".

He said: "We've had a daily soap opera of one Miliband brother or the other, with their supporters or non-supporters, commenting here and there. It is a bit like in the election campaign where it was all about personalities. I think what the public want to know, what Labour members and voters want to know, is do we have plans to deal with the big issues of our time?"

He called for Labour to focus more on issues such as house-building, saying that the Government should use a £12bn "windfall" from public borrowing for 2009-10, which is coming in at £155bn, rather than the earlier forecast of £167bn. Andy Burnham, another Labour leadership runner, dismissed suggestions that the contest is a "two-horse race" between David and Ed Miliband. The shadow Health Secretary told the BBC he was "in a strong third position and gaining ground" on his rivals.

He accused senior party figures of "self-indulgent factionalism", arguing that he was not New Labour or Old Labour but "true Labour". He criticised the portrayal of the contest as "a battle between Old and New Labour", arguing that the party had to move on.

Mr Burnham said the media focus on the Milibands was "frustrating", saying he represented "mainstream majority opinion" among Labour activists. He said Labour had become "dangerously disconnected with ordinary working people" when in government, and that he was best placed to "rebuild from the bottom up".

He promised he would not be a "tribal" leader, but was prepared to take on the Coalition Government if public services were cut.

drive from www.independent.co.uk

Posted in Articles

August 31st, 2010  by Ethan

Barack Obama flew in to New Orleans to promise that the federal government would continue to help the city back on to its feet, after the twin ravages of Hurricane Katrina and the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Across the city they call the Big Easy, residents, politicians and celebrities were marking the fifth anniversary of the day that Katrina slammed into the coast, and mourning the 1,800 people who lost their lives when the levees protecting the city from floodwaters were breached.

Some 300,000 people were displaced by the storm, whose harrowing images of suffering – from people stranded on rooftops, to the misery of people sheltering without food and water inside the New Orleans Superdome – have been replayed again and again over the weekend.

Across the city – as throughout Louisiana and the neighbouring state of Mississippi, also slammed by Katrina – memorials and marches took place yesterday.

Bells rang out at church services, while a "healing ceremony" was planned in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward, where only about a quarter of the 5,400 homes that once stood in the area have been rebuilt since the storm. A proliferation of art and music festivals highlighted a return of the vibrant cultural movement that made New Orleans unique among American cities.

Mr Obama, flying in at the end of his 10-day summer holiday, chose Xavier University for his remarks as a symbol of that renewal. The school was under water for two weeks after the levees broke but, with the aid of $55m (£35m) in federal government grants, was reopened just five months later and was quickly back to 80 per cent of its pre-Katrina student numbers.

"Katrina was a natural disaster but also a man-made catastrophe," Mr Obama said, "a shameful breakdown in government that left countless men, women and children abandoned and alone ... New Orleans could have remained a symbol of destruction and decay; of a storm that came and the inadequate response that followed. But that is not what happened."

He praised the effort to rebuild the levees, which is the largest civil works project in American history and is due to be finished next year. The completion of the work would mean that New Orleans would no longer be "playing Russian roulette every hurricane season", he said. The President also promised to "keep on BP" to fund the recovery from the oil spill, which has hit tourism and the fishing industry along the coast.

"We are going to stand with you until the oil is cleaned up, the environment is restored, polluters are held accountable, communities are made whole, and this region is back on its feet," Mr Obama said.

The President visited some of the businesses that were local institutions before the storm, and have since been rebuilt and reopened. At a family-owned shop, closed for nearly three months after Katrina, co-owners Jay and Eileen Nix were serving a crowd of Sunday lunch-goers when the President arrived. He ordered the shrimp.

drive from www.independent.co.uk

Posted in Articles

August 30th, 2010  by Ethan

The coffin lay open. The mourners approached one by one.

Some spat their contempt and turned away swiftly. Others reached inside the grand, silver casket and kept a hand there for a moment as if trying to purge the years of terrible memories and suffering. Each left a handwritten note.

"Since this is a church, I'm going to be nice," said one. "You made me lose my home. You may have taken away my life as I know it but you'll never take away my spirit."

Another said: "Thank God you are gone but unfortunately you will never be forgotten."

The congregation had gathered to bury Hurricane Katrina five years after it smashed through New Orleans' inadequate levees, flooded most of the city and erased entire communities. About 1,800 died and more than a million fled, many never to return. Tens of thousands are still living in trailers scattered across neighbouring Texas and beyond. Many of those who did come back faced desolation, the destruction of their homes, the loss of their jobs.

The Roman Catholic archbishop of New Orleans, Gregory Aymond, said the symbolic funeral would lay to rest "the hurt, the pain, the woundedness, the hopelessness".

He then looked on slightly astonished at the vigour of an evangelical preacher, Jesse Boyd, who put it another way: "We're here to say arrivederci, adios, goodbye to Katrina. Rest well."

Five years on, the government has spent $143bn on the reconstruction of public buildings and private homes, roads and bridges, in one of the largest programmes of its kind in US history.

But the anger of the notes dropped into the coffin echoes across large areas of a city that has recovered so completely in parts that the only evidence of Katrina is how often it still comes up in conversation.

The money-spinning French Quarter is again busy with tourists, and white southern gentlemen in panama hats and bow ties populate the restaurants of the smarter ends of town as if nothing ever happened.

Then there is Ventura Drive, a few blocks from Katrina's funeral in St Bernard parish. House number 3112 stands almost alone. There is a compulsory demolition notice taped to the window. There is no 3110 or 3114.

The blocks to the left and right, in front and behind have been wiped of all sign of the homes that once stood there. Today grass stretches right across the space where the houses stood close to an oil refinery at the water's edge, which poured fuel into the flood five years ago.

More than one third of the population of St Bernard has still not returned.

drive from www.guardian.co.uk

Posted in Articles

August 28th, 2010  by Ethan

David Miliband poses the greatest threat to the Conservative party of all the candidates in the Labour leadership contest, David Cameron has said in private remarks that could change the dynamic of the campaign just days before millions of ballot papers are posted.

To the likely delight of the older Miliband, who enters the final stages as the frontrunner, the prime minister has made it clear he believes the shadow foreign secretary stands the best chance of reaching out to middle Britain.

A well-placed source told the Guardian: "David Cameron said the candidate he hoped for was Ed Miliband, and the candidate he most feared was David Miliband."

Ed Miliband, who is thought to be slightly behind his brother in first preference votes, but who hopes second choice votes will propel him to victory, is likely to be irritated by Cameron's remarks, which echo those of supporters of Tony Blair: his backers believe that his elder brother is being supported by what they describe as the "Blair machinery".

Tory high command believes David Miliband is flawed and lacks the easy manner of Tony Blair, who was regarded by Cameron and George Osborne as unbeatable. But Downing Street believes that the senior Miliband, who this week told the Labour party to abandon its "comfort zone", stands the best chance of reaching the sort of voters wooed by Blair.

Tories believe that Ed Miliband is an intellectual heavyweight, but showed the influence of his mentor, Gordon Brown, this week when he in effect attacked his brother with a warning about remaining in the "New Labour comfort zone".

One senior Tory said: "Labour needs to rebuild the coalition that gave Tony Blair three successive election victories. David Miliband appears best placed to do that. He at least gives the impression of being able to lead."

One minister said: "On the whole we would prefer if Ed Miliband won. His analysis that Labour has to go for a traditional Labour vote, rather than the middle classes, is absolutely wrong. The Ed Miliband analysis will lead them into big trouble."

The Tories are cautioning that they would not regard a victory by David Miliband in the way they were terrified by Blair's win in 1994. John Maples, a senior Tory, wrote an internal memo saying that Blair posed a grave threat to the Tories.

Senior Tories have also expressed satisfaction that the Labour leadership contest appears not to have enthused the public. "It really does remind us of the Conservative party in the late 1990s," one senior figure said. "The contest has not energised anyone outside the party and is seen as a bit of a joke."

The remarks by the Tories show that while the party does not believe Labour presents an immediate threat, they will need to assess a David Miliband victory with care.

Cameron was overheard making his remarks about the Miliband brothers at Rupert Murdoch's summer party in June.

The prime minister often talks in private about the Labour leadership contest. One of his familiar jokes is to say that he is praying that Ed Balls will win, on the grounds that he would love to face the political successor of Brown across the despatch box every week.

The views of the Tory party came as tensions between the Miliband brothers deepened today when Ed Miliband warned that supporters of New Labour were "out of touch" with voters.

drive from www.guardian.co.uk

Posted in Articles

August 26th, 2010  by Ethan

On the football pitch he was known as el Mortero Magico – the magic mortar. Throughout the 1980s Franklin Lobos had a glittering career in the Chilean premiership, playing for top side Cobresal and representing his country in its attempt to make it to the 1984 Olympics.

Fans in the dusty northern city of El Salvador, where Cobresal is based, remember a stocky midfielder with powerful free kicks and the ability to hurl the ball prodigious distances.

But today, the 53-year-old is one of the 33 men trapped in the San José gold and copper mine desperately waiting to be brought back to the surface in an audacious rescue attempt that has captivated the world.

In the next few days emergency workers hope to begin construction on a concrete platform which will soon house 28 tonnes of vital digging equipment. Engineers will bore a shaft large enough to winch the men to safety.

But conservative estimates suggest it could take up to four months to pierce through the 700 metres of rock lying between them and the trapped miners. Relatives at Camp Esperanza, the makeshift tent city that has sprung up on the arid hillsides surrounding the mine, have been told not to tell their loved ones how long they will have to wait to see daylight.

Psychologists say the men need to be kept upbeat and occupied if they are to make it through the mental strain of what lies ahead.

But as emergency workers begin planning one of the most complicated rescue attempts in mining history, attention has shifted to the remarkable resilience and bravery shown by "los 33".

From the 63-year-old mining veteran who has finally started writing love letters to his wife after three decades of marriage, to the group leader who kept his men alive by rationing them to one tablespoon of canned tuna a day, the men's personal battles have kept Chileans glued to their television screens as they pray for a successful outcome.

Mr Lobos's story is a world away from the gilded lives of Britain's premiership footballers. But it is typical for a man born into a poor region of the world, where mining is one of the few regular forms of employment.

The San José mine, owned by the Compañia Minera San Esteban Primera, lies within the Atacama Desert, a 40,000 square mile plateau trapped by the Andes and Chile's coastal mountain range.

drive from www.independent.co.uk

Posted in Articles

August 25th, 2010  by Ethan

Since I left Caprice Holdings two years ago last December, I've kept myself pretty busy, what with my various restaurant openings. Well, I'm now on the verge of opening another outlet, only this time it's slightly different because it's located in the über-store that is Selfridges in London. During the past two years I have been working on the idea with my friend Ewan Venters, the store's food and restaurants director – and it's very exciting that it's finally about to happen.

I'm taking over the old Gallery Restaurant and Champagne Bar and the space has had a good old overhaul with the help of the Conran design team. We're hoping to open in early March, it will be called Hix Restaurant and Champagne Bar (for more information see hixatselfridges.co.uk), and the food will have a bit more of a European flavour than my other restaurants. The Champagne Bar will feature some well-known labels along with some small interesting growers who are quietly producing some truly fantastic bubbly.

drive from www.independent.co.uk

Posted in Articles

August 24th, 2010  by Ethan

The divorce is finally through – Tiger Woods will tee it up as a single man on Thursday for the first time since the Amex Championship in 2004. That week, in Cork Harbour, Ireland, Woods finished ninth. Then such a result was regarded as something of a setback. At The Barclays this week it would be considered a turnaround.

And perhaps that is what the Ridgewood Country Club in New Jersey will witness, now that the line has been drawn and the pretending can stop. But then, that hope must be classed among the hopelessly forlorn. The Woods inquisition - which has seemed to have lasted the full four months since his return from his self-enforced exile – is bound to gain a fresh fervour.

This week, if he consents to appear before the media, he will face the questions of how he intends to rebuild his life. Expect to hear the phrase "each day I'll just try to become a better father and a better person" on more than one occasion. The golf fanatics will roll their eyes. All they'll want to know is what it will take to become the world's best golfer once again.
But the two will be linked, even if a halo never has been a vital part of a professional's apparel. To understand how the split at home has affected his game one only needs to look at the time around the Open Championship. Six weeks ago, everyone was wondering why he felt forced to return to Orlando from the JP McManus Invitational in Limerick for a four-day spell, before flying back over to Scotland. "To see my kids," he said. Woods neglected to explain he was also attending a four-hour parenting course as part of the divorce agreement.

With all this going on in the background, his tie for 23rd at St Andrews is put in its perspective. His friends were not so secretive about the debilitating effect of the negotiations concerning not only the astronomical sums involved but also the complexities of access to his two children. They saw the experts speculating how Woods could have fallen so far and a few were keen to explain the simple factor pushing him.

"There's nothing wrong with his swing," said David Feherty, the Ulster pro turned TV pundit. "There's nothing wrong with anything except the head full of slamming doors that you have when you go through a divorce. Golf is not a reaction sport. There's a lot of time for your mind to wander and anytime you get children involved it's a rough time in your life."

drive from www.independent.co.uk

Posted in Articles

August 23rd, 2010  by Ethan

Pakistan, who had hitherto looked incapable of beating a carpet, won the Third Test yesterday.

It took them four hours of the fourth day to see off England, the finishing line kept receding, but finally, blissfully and deservedly for the tourists the crucial single arrived.

The series now stands at 2-1 in favour of the home side, the Fourth and final Test begins at Lord's on Thursday and suddenly anything could happen. Pakistan, no-hopers five days ago after being twice bowled out for double figure scores, are now contenders again.
This is, of course, perfectly normal practice for a team which never knows what each day might bring. They nearly mucked it up yesterday in an hour after lunch in which they shed three quick wickets, turning a stroll in the park to a night on Elm Street, so there is plenty of scope between now and Thursday for them to change at least twice the side of the bed they wake up on.

As for England, this four-wicket defeat in an eminently watchable match not only halted an artificial sequence of six successive victories, but also begged many questions about the state of the team. Whatever they say about being in a happy place there was a multitude of unhappy aspects about their display in this Test.

The batting in both innings was eventually wretched and in some respects the collapse in the second was sorrier than the rank incompetence in the first because it showed them unable to deal with high-class swing and spin bowling. Pakistan bowled beautifully in the final session on Friday to ensure that they were overwhelming favourites at the start of play yesterday but their opponents were willing accomplices.

These defects need addressing because England's batting has been less than impressive for a little while. Too many innings are being rescued from disaster, too many players are out of form and it is at least a point of debate that too many of them are being given a last chance.

True, Alastair Cook ended the argument about his place with a century that showed the depth of his batting character in England's second innings (and much good it did him) and the attention now turns, more worryingly, to the captain Andrew Strauss. He has gone 22 innings without a hundred, his record is the worst among the side's batsmen this year and the last thing England need in the run-up to the Ashes is Australians taking pot-shots at a captain who cannot score a run.

The team for Thursday's match will be announced today. There will be, as usual, no changes. It is too late for that. But a more rounded exhibition of the cricketing skills is required, especially if not exclusively by the batsmen. England's bowling at times lacked purpose. Perhaps, the defeat will concentrate minds. Perhaps, given what lies ahead, it was better this way, perhaps the issues would have been too easily avoided had England somehow snatched a victory yesterday even as the jaws of defeat eased into the jugular. And how close it came.

drive fom www.independent.co.uk

Posted in Articles