From Table Mountain to District 6, cartoonist Brandan Reynolds explores the complicated past and present of the city often referred to as South Africa’s ‘Mother City’
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‘I have more than 100 different food rules’: how healthy eating became an obsession
For years I binged on diet books: paleo, keto, vegan, the 16:8. But can you have too much of a good thing?
It started during the 1999 eclipse. The year before, I had run away to Devon. Lots of bad things had happened there, but the main one was that I’d got fat. On my 27th birthday, I was 5ft 6in and weighed a hefty (as I bizarrely thought then) 9st 2lb. Worse: according to every news story I read, I was going to get an incurable disease and die. The most likely cause would be food; mad cow disease hadn’t gone away, and then there were pesticides and insecticides and growth hormones. When a friend told me he’d heard organic diets were cancer-preventing, I was in. As the skies darkened on 11 August, and birds began their evening song hours too early, I pledged that if I survived the solar eclipse, I would eat only organic food. I would stay healthy, and I would not die.
When organic food didn’t make my life perfect, I tried food combining (no protein with carbs). Then veganism. For 20 years now, I have cycled between diets and diet books, in search of the perfect hack for a good life: great health, better skin, the optimum weight and all, of course, with minimal impact on the environment. (Like so many women who dedicate their eating disorders to saving the planet, I need what I eat to be in some way an ethical choice.) I have been a vegetarian, a meat eater; I have gone paleo, keto, macrobiotic, pegan (look it up).
Continue reading...Strike a contrapposto pose to look more attractive, science says
Study finds pose makes waist-to-hip ratio seem lower on one side and looks more appealing
Dancers do it, Instagrammers do it, even the Venus de Milo does it. When it comes to striking a pose, it seems the only way is contrapposto. Now research has shed light on why the attitude is so appealing.
Experts say the pose, which involves standing with weight predominantly on one foot with a slight twist in the upper body, makes the waist-to-hip ratio appear strikingly low on one side of the body.
Continue reading...‘Freddy Krueger in the room’: women confront Harvey Weinstein at New York event
Several women heckled after raising questions about producer’s attendance at talent show
Several women were booed, heckled and asked to leave after confronting Harvey Weinstein at a New York showcase for emerging talent.
Comedian Kelly Bachman told the Guardian she “felt like the air was sucked out of the room” when she called out Weinstein during a set she performed at the event.
Continue reading...Björk – her 20 greatest songs ranked!
Ahead of her ambitious Cornucopia tour reaching the UK in November, we select the greatest work by the Icelandic pop-polymath
An overlooked gem, tacked on to the end of her fan-selected Greatest Hits collection, It’s in Our Hands is a sublime slice of future R&B conjured up in collaboration with the avant-techno duo Matmos. There is a particularly spicy and formidable version included on the Vespertine Live album.
Continue reading...JK Rowling urges students not to volunteer at orphanages
Author highlights evidence suggesting that ‘orphanage tourism’ drives families apart and makes children vulnerable to abuse
JK Rowling has called on students around the world not to volunteer at orphanages, pointing to emerging evidence that “orphanage tourism” drives family separation and child trafficking.
Speaking at the One Young World summit in London, the global forum for young leaders, the Harry Potter author and founder and president of children’s charity Lumos, said orphanages do “irreparable harm” and “perpetuate the abuse” of children and communities.
Continue reading...Coldplay use classified ads in local papers to reveal new album tracks
Band reveal details of double album Sunrise and Sunset among ads for bales of hay and whitegoods
Coldplay has revealed the tracks of its new album by placing ads in the classified sections of newspapers around the world.
They started close to home with local papers in north Wales and Devon but also included Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald, the Otago Daily Times in New Zealand and Le Monde in France.
Continue reading...Auteurs assemble! What caused the superhero backlash?
They’ve conquered the box office. Now it’s payback time. As they are attacked by filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, are TV and movie superheroes fighting a losing battle against reality?
Alan Moore’s celebrated 1986 series Watchmen revolved around a conspiracy to kill off masked vigilantes, and in effect that’s what it did in real life. Compared with the complex, mature, literary nature of Watchmen, most other comic-book titles looked juvenile and two-dimensional. This was at a time when “comic-book movies” meant Christopher Reeve’s wholesome Superman series, and when the only inhabitant of the Marvel movie universe was Howard the Duck. The entire industry had to up its game, and a new era of mature “graphic novels” was born.
Now we appear to have come full circle – which is fitting for a story so heavy with clock symbolism. With uncanny timing, HBO’s lavish new Watchmen series arrives at a moment when comic-book movies are again in what you might call a decadent phase of the cycle. They have decisively conquered our screens and our box offices, with ever grander and more improbable forms of spectacle, to the extent that we’re now beginning to question how much more of them we need. Could Watchmen kill off the superheroes once again?
Continue reading...Exposing one’s selfies: Aucklanders answer call for city snapshots – in pictures
Curators have added 1,000 selfies to Auckland Museum’s permanent photography collection after calling on the public to submit them. ‘Our collection holds more than 3m photographs, dating back to the early days of photography, and a part of my role is to ensure our collection continues to reflect trends,’ says its curator of pictorial, Shaun Higgins. ‘The selfie is a present-day photographic phenomenon that can’t be overlooked’
• Insider’s guide to Auckland: a multicultural melting pot by the sea
Continue reading...Quentin Tarantino won’t censor Once Upon a Time in Hollywood for China – report
Sources tell Hollywood reporter Bruce Lee’s daughter raised concerns over the film’s portrayal of the martial arts star
Quentin Tarantino will not edit Once Upon a Time in Hollywood to placate Chinese censors, the Hollywood Reporter said.
Related: Bruce Lee's daughter hits out at father's portrayal in Tarantino film
Continue reading...Biggest ever Leonardo da Vinci exhibition to open in Paris
Louvre will host works of Italian artist after long-running political spats and legal battles
The most important blockbuster art show in Paris for half a century took 10 years to prepare and was nearly thwarted by the worst diplomatic standoff between Italy and France since the second world war. With days to go before the opening, there is still no sign of whether one of the major works will appear.
The Louvre’s vast Leonardo da Vinci exhibition to mark 500 years since the death of the Italian Renaissance master will finally open next week as the world’s most-visited museum prepares to handle a huge influx of visitors.
Continue reading...K-pop under scrutiny over ‘toxic fandom’ after death of Sulli
Anger grows at culture of exploitation and failure of agencies to protect performers
The death this week of the South Korean singer and actor Sulli has turned the spotlight on the darkest corners of the highly pressurised K-pop industry and sparked anger over the failure of management agencies to protect their stars from the menace of “toxic fandom”.
Sulli, a former member of the group f(x), had spoken publicly about her mental health problems and shock at her death has led to calls for greater support for performers. Authorities said she was suffering from severe depression and are investigating suicide as a possible cause of death.
Continue reading...Panama Papers law firm Mossack Fonseca sues Netflix over The Laundromat
Partners Jurgen Mossack and Ramon Fonseca want US court to stop the film being released on Friday
The partners of the offshore law firm whose confidential files were exposed in the Panama Papers leak, Mossack Fonseca, have launched defamation action against Netflix over a movie about the scandal that is due to be released on Friday.
In a US lawsuit filed on Tuesday, Jurgen Mossack and Ramon Fonseca say The Laundromat, in which they are respectively played by Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas, portrays them as “ruthless uncaring lawyers who are involved in money laundering, tax evasion, bribery and/or other criminal conduct” and ask the court to stop it from being screened.
Continue reading...Booker winners Bernardine Evaristo and Margaret Atwood on breaking the rules
The judges staged a ‘joyful mutiny’ to name the pair joint winners of the literary prize. And that’s not all that unites them
It was clear that things were not going to plan when, just half an hour before the guests began to arrive, the judges of this year’s Booker prize had yet to make a decision. Five hours after they had begun their deliberations, they finally emerged in a state of “joyful mutiny” to announce that they had decided to break with convention, throw out the rule book and anoint two winners rather than the usual one.
By happy coincidence, Bernardine Evaristo is the same age that Margaret Atwood was when, in 2000, she first won the Booker prize with The Blind Assassin. “And I’m happy that we’ve both got curly hair,” quipped Atwood as they took to the stage arm in arm. They talk about it again the following morning, comparing notes about hair etiquette and handy products for curls. “People used to review my hair back in the day,” says Atwood.
Continue reading...Backlash after Booker awards prize to two authors
Decision to make first black female winner, Bernardine Evaristo, share £50,000 prize with Margaret Atwood causes controversy
The Booker prize judges’ decision to break the rules and jointly award the prize to Margaret Atwood and Bernadine Evaristo has been criticised, with detractors pointing out that the first black woman ever to win Britain’s most prestigious literary award has had to share it – while receiving half the usual money.
Chair of the judges Peter Florence shocked the literary world on Monday night when he revealed that the jury had decided – unanimously, he said – to flout rules, which have been in place since 1992, that the Booker “may not be divided or withheld”. After more than five hours of deliberation, he announced that this year’s £50,000 award would be split between Atwood’s follow-up to The Handmaid’s Tale, The Testaments, and Evaristo’s polyphonic novel Girl, Woman, Other. Told in the voices of 12 different characters, mostly black women, Evaristo has said that the novel, her eighth, stems from the fact that “we black British women know that if we don’t write ourselves into literature, no one else will”.
Continue reading...Ronan Farrow reveals extreme measures Weinstein took to bury alleged crimes
Farrow’s book Catch and Kill describes Harvey Weinstein’s efforts to silence alleged victims and put Farrow himself off the story
The combination of rage, threats, professional promises and vulnerability that Harvey Weinstein used to secure the silence of women he allegedly sexually attacked is described in a newly disclosed interview between one of his accusers and Ronan Farrow, the journalist who exposed the Hollywood mogul.
In his new book Catch and Kill chronicling his investigation into Weinstein, Farrow relates for the first time details of his conversation with a longtime former employee of the movie producer, Alexandra Canosa.
Continue reading...Sulli, K-pop star and actor, found dead aged 25
The singer and former f(x) member, who was the victim of online bullying, had severe depression, according to police
The K-pop star and actor Sulli has been found dead at the age of 25. Police said that the celebrity, born Choi Jin-ri, was discovered unconscious at her Seongnam residence on 14 October.
“Her manager visited her home after failing to reach her since their last call the night before,” Seongnam police said, adding that Sulli had been experiencing severe depression. “It seems that she took her own life but we are also looking into other possibilities.”
Continue reading...‘Glacial change’: film industry is slow to reform despite #MeToo
Progress towards equality in the entertainment industry has been patchy, say campaigners
Two years ago, the entertainment industry became the primary focus of discussions over abuse, harassment and decades of ingrained sexism after allegations against Harvey Weinstein rocked Hollywood and kickstarted the wider #MeToo movement.
While a raft of initiatives have been introduced, including Time’s Up, a group that provides legal support to victims, and 50/50 x 2020, a gender parity pledge that all major film festivals have signed up to, industry experts said change has been glacial.
Continue reading...Restored 19th-century ships’ figureheads to go on display in Plymouth
The 14 carvings will hang from the ceiling in arts venue The Box, due to open in the spring
A collection of 19th-century wooden figureheads from British naval warships has been lovingly restored from the ravages of years at sea and will form a striking display at a new heritage and arts complex in Plymouth.
The 14 figureheads, some of which were so badly water-damaged that their insides had turned into a soggy mulch, are to be suspended from the ceiling of The Box gallery and museum, which is due to open in the spring.
Continue reading...The Irishman review: Martin Scorsese’s finest film for 30 years
Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and – especially – Joe Pesci turn in performances of wintry brilliance in Scorsese’s epically daring late stage mob masterpiece
Martin Scorsese returns with his best picture since GoodFellas and one of his best films ever. It’s a superbly acted, thrillingly shot epic mob procedural about violence, betrayal, dishonesty and emotional bankruptcy starring Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Al Pacino, set in a time before “toxic masculinity” had been formally diagnosed but when everyone lived with the symptoms. The film has been talked about for the hi-tech “youthification” technology which allows De Niro to appear as a younger man: it’s no more artificial than the traditional wigs, latex etc and it’s amazing how quickly you get used to it. De Niro’s eyes achieve an eerie, gluey gleam in this manifestation as a digital ghost from his past.
These are men conducting their business with sorrowful hints and shrugs and mutterings about who has gone too far, who has not shown respect, who will need to be persuaded to attend a sit-down to straighten this whole thing out. These solemnly or cordially euphemistic encounters in a subdued steakhouse light periodically explode into violence or dreamlike scenes of choreographed catastrophe, punctuated by gunshots or visceral jukebox slams on the soundtrack. And all given a queasy new resonance of political conspiracy and bad faith.
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