Salon.com > England http://www.salon.com Sun, 19 May 2013 01:00:00 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 6 of the world’s weirdest taxes http://www.salon.com/2013/05/14/6_of_the_worlds_weirdest_taxes_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/14/6_of_the_worlds_weirdest_taxes_partner/#comments Tue, 14 May 2013 18:11:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13298401 Global Post As the old adage goes, there are only two certainties in life: death and taxes.

We at GlobalPost live by a third certainty: The world is a weird and wondrous place. However, we didn't realize until recently how much the promises of weirdness and taxes overlap.

From extra charges on flavored vodka in the US to beards in Russia, here are the top six wackiest taxes we've found around the world:

1. Tax on smartphones and laptops in France

French President Francois Hollande is considering a tax on smartphones, laptops and tablets to finance the country's celebrated exception culturelle, or "cultural exception," a precious French principle enshrined in law.

The exception essentially requires that anything considered to be of cultural value to French society must be protected from erratic market forces and the pernicious spread of non-French cultural items — namely, American and other English-language influences.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/14/6_of_the_worlds_weirdest_taxes_partner/feed/ 1 “She Left Me the Gun”: Her mother’s shocking past http://www.salon.com/2013/05/13/she_left_me_the_gun_her_mothers_shocking_past/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/13/she_left_me_the_gun_her_mothers_shocking_past/#comments Mon, 13 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13294445 It took less than a chapter of "She Left Me the Gun: My Mother's Life Before Me" for me to fall for Emma Brockes' mother, Pauline. First and foremost, there's Pauline's tart, post-colonial sangfroid. An émigré from South Africa, where she spent the first 28 years of her life, she wound up raising her only child in Britain, in what Brockes, a journalist, describes as "a gentle kind of place, leafy and green, with the customary features of a nice English village." Pauline was unimpressed. "The English," she was fond of pronouncing, "are a people who cook their fruit." She regaled her daughter with tales of growing up in what was then Zululand, where even snakes and scorpions were nothing to fuss about. "Whining was not permissible. Undervaluing oneself was not permissible," Brockes writes of her mother's attitude toward life. Another tenet: "Look lively, or die."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/13/she_left_me_the_gun_her_mothers_shocking_past/feed/ 0 Mammoth elephant bird egg nets $100,000 bid at auction http://www.salon.com/2013/04/24/mammoth_elephant_bird_egg_nets_100000_bid_at_uk_auction_ap/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/24/mammoth_elephant_bird_egg_nets_100000_bid_at_uk_auction_ap/#comments Wed, 24 Apr 2013 14:43:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13280748 LONDON (AP) — A massive, partly fossilized egg laid by a now-extinct elephant bird has sold for more than double its estimate at a London auction.

Christie's auction house said Wednesday that the foot-long, nearly nine-inches in diameter egg fetched 66,675 pounds ($101,813). It had been valued at 20,000 to 30,000 pounds pre-sale, and was sold to an anonymous buyer over the telephone after about 10 minutes of competitive bidding.

Elephant birds were wiped out several hundred years ago. The oversized ovum, laid on the island of Madagascar, is believed to date back before the 17th century.

Flightless, fruit-gobbling elephant birds resembled giant ostriches and could grow to be 11 feet high (3.4 meters). Christie's says their eggs are 100 times the size of an average chicken's.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/24/mammoth_elephant_bird_egg_nets_100000_bid_at_uk_auction_ap/feed/ 8 Terrorism comes home http://www.salon.com/2013/04/22/boston_bombings_echo_london_madrid_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/22/boston_bombings_echo_london_madrid_partner/#comments Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13278536 As an eighth-grader in a Cambridge public school, suspected Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was quiet, friendly, spoke good English and seemed at home in his adopted country.

While hundreds of police officers pursued the 19-year-old during a nationally-televised rampage across Boston Friday, a former classmate recounted memories of the refugee who, according to counterterror officials, became a U.S. citizen on an ironic date: Sept. 11, 2012.

The story of the Boston bombers, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan, is still unfolding at high speed. Many aspects of the case, including the brothers' motivations, are not yet clear. But a portrait began to emerge Friday based on ProPublica interviews with counterterror officials, the public statements of relatives and associates, and reports in the media.

Counterterror officials believe the brothers were Islamic extremists. And the information available so far suggests that they appeared to integrate well into U.S. society, yet slid into a spiral of Islamic radicalization with bloody results. The profile has similarities to the home-grown terrorists behind attacks in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005, according to counterterror officials.

"He was always a nice kid," said Cam Blauchner, who attended middle school with Dzhokhar, in a telephone interview with ProPublica. "He was shy, but not in a creepy way. He was a sweet guy. We played soccer together. I knew he was from Chechnya, but he never talked about it. He never mentioned his religious affiliation. I didn't know he was Muslim."

At some point, however, Dzhokhar and his brother plunged into a subculture that is grimly familiar to counterterror agencies in Europe and, to a lesser but worrisome extent, the United States, officials said.

There are signs that the brothers showed interest in the conflict in Syria, which has drawn al Qaida fighters and other militants from across the Muslim world and Europe, according to a U.S. counterterror official. Like others interviewed for this story, the official requested anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the ongoing case.

The brothers had viewed videos about the plight of Syrian Muslims, the official said. Syria is the latest hotspot on the world map of jihad. Holy warriors a decade ago were inspired by videos about brutal combat between jihadis and Russian troops in the brothers' family homeland: the predominantly Muslim region of Chechnya, a breeding ground for al Qaida fighters in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Tamerlan had viewed a video titled "I Dedicate My Life to Jihad," according to a U.S. law enforcement official. The brothers also were apparently influenced by the online Inspire magazine, a slick English-language publication that plays a strong role in disseminating ideological tracts and bomb-making techniques to Western extremists, the U.S. counterterror official said.

"It's like London, it's like Madrid in the radicalization," the counterterror official said. "These guys were produced by the international jihadist machine. The biggest thing is they were individuals willing to die. They were committed. There was interest in events overseas affecting Muslims. And a lot of Internet activity — the things that everyone in the counterterror community worries about."

The brothers had traveled in recent years to Russia, officials said. Tamerlan returned via New York from a trip to Moscow in July 2012, according to a U.S. law enforcement official. But officials said nothing so far indicates recent travel to Chechnya, in southern Russia, or war zones where terrorist groups provide training and direction to Western recruits.

"The big question is, are they part of a bigger network or just two brothers who decided to do this and pulled it off on their own?" the law enforcement official said. The well-choreographed bombing, the preparation of multiple explosive devices and the ferocity with which the fugitives battled police could indicate overseas training, officials said.

Suspected Chechen terrorists have been arrested in alleged bomb plots in Denmark, France and Spain in recent years. The failed "underwear" bomber who tried to blow up a plane over Detroit in 2009 was trained and deployed by al Qaida in Yemen. Would-be bombers in plots against New York in 2009 and 2010 were directed by al Qaida and allied networks in Pakistan.

The brothers are ethnic Chechens whose family moved around the war-torn Caucuses region when the boys were young. Tamerlan was born in Dagestan, near Chechnya, and Dzhokhar in Kyrgyzstan, according to officials and media reports. They went as refugees to the United States, arriving separately, according to counterterror officials and televised statements by an uncle in Maryland.

Dzhokhar arrived in 2002 on a tourist visa, obtained permanent resident status in 2007 and became a citizen in 2012, officials said. Tamerlan was admitted as a refugee in 2003 and later became a permanent resident, officials said. Tamerlan has an arrest for domestic violence on his record, the law enforcement official said.

The family lived in Cambridge when Dzhokhar was in middle school at the Community Charter School of Cambridge, according to his classmate, Blauchner. Dzhokhar stood out in a mostly African-American student population, but he got along well with classmates at the school, which stresses academic rigor and strict discipline, according to Blauchner, now a sophomore at the University of Chicago.

Dzhokhar had long hair and was short, pale and thin when Blauchner knew him in seventh and eighth grade. The immigrant boy wore the school-mandated uniform of khaki pants and a white, black or red polo shirt. He often ate lunch in the cafeteria with Blauchner and friends of Ethiopian and Bengali descent.

Dzhokhar studied hard and stayed out of trouble, according to Blauchner, and went on to win a scholarship, according to media reports. He was a student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, according to media reports.

"He never seemed disgruntled," Blauchner said. "He never seemed sad. We weren't the nerdy kids, but we were more into academics."

Although he has not seen Dzhokhar since they graduated from middle school, Blauchner said he recognized his former classmate from the photos made public by the FBI. Blauchner was stunned.

The frenzy after the Boston Marathon attacks recalls the aftermath of the bombings on public transport systems that killed 191 people in Madrid in 2004 and 52 people in London in 2005, as well as a failed bombing in London two weeks later.

Those cases similarly featured frantic manhunts, publicized photos of suspects, and chaotic and confused media reports.

In Madrid, police tracked down a group of suspects who died after a shootout when their booby-trapped hideout exploded, killing a police officer.

The profiles of the Madrid and London suspects resemble the information emerging about the Tsarnaev brothers. Spaniards and Britons were shocked to discover that the terrorists had grown up in their midst and benefited from the comfort of Western societies.

A Tunisian-born leader of the Madrid bombers had received a Spanish university scholarship and was a well-liked employee at a real estate agency.

A Moroccan-born leader spoke street Spanish, was known by the nicknames "El Chino" and "Mowgli," dealt drugs and zoomed around with his long-haired Spanish girlfriend on a motorcycle.

Several convicted bombers in the failed London attack had come to Britain as children thanks to generous asylum policies for refugees from East Africa. Three of the suicide bombers who died in the successful attack two weeks earlier were seemingly well-integrated, British-born sons of Pakistani immigrants.

Yet, despite their Western ways, the attackers in London and Madrid harbored deep hatreds and inflicted indiscriminate slaughter on their fellow citizens.

Young men from Muslim immigrant backgrounds who radicalize in the West get swept up in the seductive outlaw culture of jihad. They construct a new identity in which the struggles of their Muslim homelands, even if they do not know them well, play a powerful role and foment anger at the West.

Counterterror officials say a similar trajectory could explain why the Tsarnaev brothers designed an attack on families at a festive sporting event.

Whatever the motive turns out to be, the fact that the brothers spent years in Boston sheds light on their choice of target. They likely knew the significance of the marathon, the ebb and flow of the crowds during the race, the geography. It remains to be seen whether they considered the symbolism of the date: April 15 was both tax day and Patriots' Day, marking the first battles of the American Revolution.

The choice of the day led some counterterror officials in recent days to suspect that the bombers were American-born, extreme-right, antigovernment terrorists.

In reality, it appears the suspects were the mix that most worries law enforcement: longtime Americanized residents who know the society well, but have a profile enabling them to develop connections to Islamic extremist ideology, if not actual movements, overseas.

The Madrid bombers had strong ideological links to al Qaida, but carried out the attacks with minimal overseas training and direction. The London bombers, in contrast, communicated with al Qaida masterminds who provided training and directed them to their targets from Pakistan.

The results in both cases were devastating.

Now, U.S. intelligence officials are combing through files, intercepts and data bases to see if they had previous information on extremist activity of the Tsarnaev brothers. In Madrid, London and many other cases, the attackers had earlier surfaced on the radar screen of law enforcement.

That is not necessarily a scandal; it is simply the reality of the terrain of counterterrorism.

Updated Friday, April 19, 9:10 p.m.

The FBI interviewed Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the elder of the brothers suspected in the Boston bombings, in 2011, two U.S. law enforcement officials told ProPublica Friday evening. The FBI agents conducted the inquiry into suspected extremist or terrorist activity at the request of a Russian security agency, the officials said.

“Yes he was interviewed,” a U.S. law enforcement official said. “Nothing derogatory came of it. We reported it back to the other agency, but never got anything as far as further communications from them. There was never any reason to do anything else.”

Tsarnaev’s mother has told media outlets that the FBI had contact with her about her son’s potential involvement in extremism five years ago, but the law enforcement official said authorities were only aware of the inquiry in 2011. Other media outlets also reported the 2011 interview late Friday.

In past cases in the United States and overseas, law enforcement and intelligence agencies have identified, followed or investigated suspects who were later implicated in attacks or plots. Experts point out that security forces simply do not have enough personnel to constantly watch every potential extremist who comes to their attention. Hard decisions have to be made.

Cases that have brought criticism of U.S. authorities include the failure to more closely investigate leads about Maj. Nidal Hassan, the accused shooter in the 2009 Fort Hood massacre, and about David Coleman Headley, a central figure in the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/22/boston_bombings_echo_london_madrid_partner/feed/ 4 Britain lays Margaret Thatcher to rest http://www.salon.com/2013/04/17/britain_lays_margaret_thatcher_to_rest_ap/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/17/britain_lays_margaret_thatcher_to_rest_ap/#comments Wed, 17 Apr 2013 11:24:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13273530 LONDON (AP) — Margaret Thatcher, Britain's Iron Lady, was laid to rest Wednesday with a level of pomp and protest reflecting her status as a commanding, polarizing political figure.

Bishop of London Richard Chartres referred to the strong feelings the former prime minister still evokes 23 years after leaving office in his address to the 2,300 mourners at St. Paul's Cathedral.

"The storm of conflicting opinions centers on the Mrs. Thatcher who became a symbolic figure — even an -ism," he said. "Today the remains of the real Margaret Hilda Thatcher are here at her funeral service."

"There is an important place for debating policies and legacy ... but here and today is neither the time nor the place."

More than 700 soldiers, sailors and air force personnel lined the route to the cathedral and around 4,000 police officers were on duty. Security was stepped up after Monday's bombings at the Boston Marathon that killed three people and wounded more than 170.

Spectators lining the route broke into applause — and scattered boos — as the carriage passed by, escorted by young soldiers, sailors and airmen.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/17/britain_lays_margaret_thatcher_to_rest_ap/feed/ 0 Thatcher’s funeral as divisive as her reign http://www.salon.com/2013/04/17/thatcher%e2%80%99s_funeral_as_divisive_as_her_reign/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/17/thatcher%e2%80%99s_funeral_as_divisive_as_her_reign/#comments Wed, 17 Apr 2013 07:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13273198 The funeral of Margaret Thatcher is proving to be as divisive as the policies she pursued while she was prime minister. Early on Wednesday morning, mourners and protesters as well as curious onlookers will gather for her funeral procession, which will snake through central London from the Palace of Westminster to St Paul’s Cathedral. Her coffin, draped in the union flag, will be carried on a First World War-era gun carriage drawn by six black horses, with its route lined by more than 700 military personnel. Once the procession reaches St. Paul’s, Thatcher’s funeral service will take place in the presence of dignitaries from around the world and be broadcast to millions at home and abroad. Yesterday it was announced that the chimes of Big Ben would be silenced for the duration of the funeral proceedings, a step last taken in 1965 at the state funeral of Winston Churchill.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/17/thatcher%e2%80%99s_funeral_as_divisive_as_her_reign/feed/ 9 Sarah Palin thinks she’s Margaret Thatcher http://www.salon.com/2013/04/08/sarah_palin_thinks_shes_margaret_thatcher/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/08/sarah_palin_thinks_shes_margaret_thatcher/#comments Mon, 08 Apr 2013 21:26:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13265186 Here's how a former half-term governor described Margaret Thatcher in National Review today. Sound familiar?

She was at heart a populist taking on the Conservative party’s old guard, who disdainfully referred to her as “That Woman.” The disdain was mutual. She referred to them as “the not so grand grandees.” As Thatcher later said, “It didn’t matter what they called me as long as I got the job done. I mean, to me they were ‘Those Grandees.’ They just don’t know what life is like. They haven’t been through it. And eventually if they didn’t help our cause, they had to go. But it didn’t bother me too much that they were patronizing like that. Frankly, the people, who are the true gentlemen, deal with others for what they are, not who their father was. Let’s face it: Maybe it took ‘That Woman’ to get things done, and the real reason why they said it was because they knew they just hadn’t got it within them to see things through.”

As she continues:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/08/sarah_palin_thinks_shes_margaret_thatcher/feed/ 93 Morrissey: “Thatcher was a terror without an atom of humanity” http://www.salon.com/2013/04/08/morrissey_thatcher_was_a_terror_without_an_atom_of_humanity/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/08/morrissey_thatcher_was_a_terror_without_an_atom_of_humanity/#comments Mon, 08 Apr 2013 20:27:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13265046 In the wake of the death of former U.K. prime minister Margaret Thatcher, former "Smiths" frontman Morrissey has issued a scathing letter calling her "a terror without an atom of humanity."

The letter follows a message consistent with the Smiths, who were highly critical of Thatcher's policies and used their music and fame to publicly condemn the prime minister in the 1980s. In 1988, the politically vocal Morrissey released an especially controversial song fantasizing Thatcher's death with the track "Margaret on the Guillotine," on his album "Viva Hate."

Upon her actual death, Morrissey wrote:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/08/morrissey_thatcher_was_a_terror_without_an_atom_of_humanity/feed/ 27 Thatcher: A female icon, but not a feminist one http://www.salon.com/2013/04/08/thatcher_a_female_icon_but_not_a_feminist_one/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/08/thatcher_a_female_icon_but_not_a_feminist_one/#comments Mon, 08 Apr 2013 17:44:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13264858 There have always been women like Margaret Thatcher in power. Never more than one or two at a time, of course. Thatcher was the embodiment of what Katha Pollitt memorably called "the Smurfette syndrome," which is when "a group of male buddies will be accented by a lone female, stereotypically defined." She was not a feminist icon, nor any kind of feminist, as she took pains to remind people. "Some of us were making it before women's lib was even thought of," she once sniffed. To make it any more obvious, she might as well have literally kicked the ladder out from under her.

For decades, Thatcher's gender provided some public relations cover for her most noxious politics. That was true even today in the White House's statement on her death, which included the following treacly sentence: "As a grocer’s daughter who rose to become Britain’s first female prime minister, she stands as an example to our daughters that there is no glass ceiling that can’t be shattered."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/08/thatcher_a_female_icon_but_not_a_feminist_one/feed/ 53 They put the evil in Medieval http://www.salon.com/2013/04/05/they_put_the_evil_in_medieval/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/05/they_put_the_evil_in_medieval/#comments Fri, 05 Apr 2013 22:25:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13260855 It's no secret that George R.R. Martin based many of the characters and events in "A Song of Ice and Fire," -- the series of epic fantasy novels that has become HBO's "Game of Thrones" -- on history and on the historical fiction he loves. But viewers and readers might be excused for assuming that Martin exaggerated the vicious skullduggery in the historical record for the sake of drama. Incest, child murder, impromptu executions of allies, regicide, rampant fornication, recreational torture and countless other vices abound in Martin's Westeros, after all. Could the real-life counterparts of his characters have been quite so very, very bad?

They were. If anything, Martin downplays the ruthless bloodthirstiness of the Middle Ages and the people who ruled them. When Ving Rhames says "I'ma get medieval on your ass" in "Pulp Fiction," he's offering a truly terrifying threat. Make no mistake: Beneath the fairy-tale trappings -- velvet robes and golden crowns, stately castles and the lofty rhetoric of chivalry -- most rulers in the Middle Ages were essentially warlords. Herewith, a few of the worst, and some of their dastardly deeds.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/05/they_put_the_evil_in_medieval/feed/ 35 American TV’s British invasion http://www.salon.com/2013/04/02/are_you_with_me_doctor_who_exploring_the_british_tv_phenomenon_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/02/are_you_with_me_doctor_who_exploring_the_british_tv_phenomenon_partner/#comments Tue, 02 Apr 2013 20:48:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13258878 THE BRITISH ARE COMING. They are bringing with them a time-traveling alien who fights monsters with a screwdriver and a bow tie. On March 30, Doctor Who returns to American television with a new batch of episodes, its popularity continuing a recent trend of British shows becoming available and successful in the United States.Los Angeles Review of Books

¤

The Pulitzer-prize winning historian David Hackett Fischer wrote that “in a cultural sense most Americans are Albion’s seed, no matter who their own forebears may have been.” He was referring to our political, social, and linguistic patterns, but it may be the arts and entertainment where the patrimony and connections are strongest. School curricula invariably include Dickens, Austen, and Shakespeare. The first American movie star was London-born Charlie Chaplin. Harry Potter is the fastest selling book series in US history, even though the boarding school culture on which Hogwarts is based is practically nonexistent here and some of the jokes (“spellotape” is a play on “sellotape,” the British name for Scotch tape) don’t translate. In 1965, half of Billboard’s number-one songs were by British bands. An Englishman won an Oscar for the role of Abraham Lincoln.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/02/are_you_with_me_doctor_who_exploring_the_british_tv_phenomenon_partner/feed/ 18 Drone efficiency is pure fantasy http://www.salon.com/2013/03/25/drone_warfare_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/25/drone_warfare_partner/#comments Mon, 25 Mar 2013 11:44:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13250988 Today’s unmanned aerial vehicles, most famously Predator and Reaper drones, have been celebrated as the culmination of the longtime dreams of airpower enthusiasts, offering the possibility of victory through quick, clean, and selective destruction.  Those drones, so the (very old) story goes, assure the U.S. military of command of the high ground, and so provide the royal road to a speedy and decisive triumph over helpless enemies below.

Fantasies about the certain success of air power in transforming, even ending, war as we know it arose with the plane itself.  But when it comes to killing people from the skies, again and again air power has proven neither cheap nor surgical nor decisive nor in itself triumphant.  Seductive and tenacious as the dreams of air supremacy continue to be, much as they automatically attach themselves to the latest machine to take to the skies, air power has not fundamentally softened the brutal face of war, nor has it made war less dirty or chaotic.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/25/drone_warfare_partner/feed/ 5 Police probe the death of David Hockney’s assistant http://www.salon.com/2013/03/18/police_probe_the_death_of_david_hockneys_assistant/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/18/police_probe_the_death_of_david_hockneys_assistant/#comments Mon, 18 Mar 2013 12:35:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13244365

Dominic Elliott, the 23-year-old personal assistant of the renowned British painter David Hockney has died, after after turning up at the artist's home in Bridlington gravely ill, reports the London Evening Standard. Elliott was rushed to Scarborough Hospital in North Yorkshire at around 6 a.m. yesterday by a friend, and listed in “serious condition,” after being found unwell at the artist’s house in Bridlington — he was pronounced dead shortly after arrival.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/18/police_probe_the_death_of_david_hockneys_assistant/feed/ 1 Hilary Mantel defends calling Kate Middleton a “shop-window mannequin” http://www.salon.com/2013/03/08/hilary_mantel_defends_calling_kate_middleton_a_shop_window_mannequin/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/08/hilary_mantel_defends_calling_kate_middleton_a_shop_window_mannequin/#comments Fri, 08 Mar 2013 13:55:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13222818 Two-time Man Booker Prize-winning author Hilary Mantel has defended comments she made in which she called the Duchess of Cambridge a "a jointed doll on which certain rags are hung" and  "a shop-window mannequin, with no personality of her own." Though the comments were framed within a larger lecture around the media's portrayal of Royal figures, the quotes sparked outrage across England, causing even Prime Minister David Cameron to call Mantel  "completely misguided."

But the Henry VIII-era historical fiction writer recently told BBC Radio 3's Night Waves program that "I have absolutely nothing to apologize for," explaining that her lecture was about the media's simplistic perception of Middleton and other Royals -- not their actual personalities. "My lecture and the subsequent essay was actually supportive of the Royal Family and when I used those words about the Duchess of Cambridge, I was describing the perception of her which has been set up in the tabloid press," she said. "My whole theme was the way we maltreat royal persons, making them one superhuman, and yet less than human."

Instead, Mantel said, "I do think that the Duchess of Cambridge is an intelligent young woman who, if she cares to read my essay, will see that I meant nothing but good to her."

"It was a matter of taking the words completely out of context -- twisting the context -- and setting me up as a hate figure," she said. "I have absolutely no regrets. What I said was crystal clear."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/08/hilary_mantel_defends_calling_kate_middleton_a_shop_window_mannequin/feed/ 7 Study: UK among the more unhealthy countries in Western Europe http://www.salon.com/2013/03/05/study_uk_one_of_the_most_unhealthy_countries_in_western_europe/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/05/study_uk_one_of_the_most_unhealthy_countries_in_western_europe/#comments Tue, 05 Mar 2013 14:22:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13219114 LONDON (AP) — Despite six decades of free medical care and widespread health campaigns, Britons are among the unhealthiest people in Western Europe, a new study says.

International researchers analyzed the country's rates of sickness and death from 1990 to 2010 in comparison to those of 15 other Western European countries in addition to Australia, Canada and the U.S. Experts described the U.K. results as "startling" and said Britain was failing to address underlying health risks in its population, including rising rates of high blood pressure, obesity and drug and alcohol abuse.

"It's incredibly surprising," said Dr. Christopher Murray, who studies health metrics at the University of Washington in Seattle and is the lead author of the latest report.

"We all think of the U.K. as having a great health system and as one of the most sophisticated medical research communities in the world," he wrote in an email. "Nobody would have really expected that the U.K. would be toward the bottom."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/05/study_uk_one_of_the_most_unhealthy_countries_in_western_europe/feed/ 1 Justin Bieber: I have no excuse http://www.salon.com/2013/03/05/justin_bieber_i_have_no_excuse/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/05/justin_bieber_i_have_no_excuse/#comments Tue, 05 Mar 2013 13:42:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13219077 LONDON (AP) — Justin Bieber apologized Tuesday to his young fans — and their outraged, overtired parents — after they accused him of taking the stage almost two hours late for a concert in London.

The singer insisted he had only been 40 minutes late, and blamed "technical issues."

But, he added in a tweet to his 35 million followers: "There is no excuse for that and I apologize for anyone we upset. However it was great show and I'm proud of that."

Concertgoers said the teenage star appeared onstage at the 02 Arena on Monday at 10:30 p.m., when the start time had been listed as 8:30. Many in the audience, who had been waiting for hours, faced the choice between leaving early or missing the last trains home.

"There were teenage girls crying outside," said financial analyst Louise Cooper, who had taken her 9-year-old daughter to the gig as a birthday present.

"The ladies sitting with us had to leave after 20 minutes and they had spent 70 quid (70 pounds, about $106) each on a ticket, which is really bad.

"It's one thing if your demographic is 50-year-olds, but his demographic is lots of little girls who need to go home and go to bed."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/05/justin_bieber_i_have_no_excuse/feed/ 6 “Batman” nabs burglar in Northern England http://www.salon.com/2013/03/04/batman_nabs_burglar_in_northern_england/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/04/batman_nabs_burglar_in_northern_england/#comments Mon, 04 Mar 2013 16:04:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13218211 A man dressed as Batman has brought a suspected burglar into a police station in northern England.

West Yorkshire Police said Monday that they do not know the identity of the man who appeared in "a full Batman outfit" and turned in a 27-year-old suspect to police in Bradford, England.

CCTV images released by police show a caped crusader — fully-clad with the comic hero's boots, gloves and logo across his chest — standing alongside a man in a red hooded sweatshirt.

Police said the handover occurred on February 25 and the suspect will appear in court on March 8 charged with handling stolen goods and fraud-related offenses.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/04/batman_nabs_burglar_in_northern_england/feed/ 3 The British drink even more than they thought http://www.salon.com/2013/02/28/the_british_drink_more_than_they_thought_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/28/the_british_drink_more_than_they_thought_partner/#comments Thu, 28 Feb 2013 17:58:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13214711 Global Post

The British drink much more than previously estimated, according to a new study by researchers at University College London, the Guardian reported.

The researchers compared official surveys of British drinking patterns, which are based on respondents’ estimates of how much they drink, with sales figures, BBC News reported. Some 40 percent of the alcohol sold was unaccounted for in the official consumption figures.

If the missing alcohol is included in estimates of British drinking, the percentage of women regularly exceeding the recommended daily limit of two to three units of alcohol rises from 54 percent to 80 percent, the researchers said, according to the Guardian. Men who down more than the recommended three to four units of alcohol daily rises from 56 percent to 75 percent.

According to BBC News:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/28/the_british_drink_more_than_they_thought_partner/feed/ 6 David Cameron defies Smiths ex-guitarist, Johnny Marr http://www.salon.com/2013/02/20/david_cameron_defies_smiths_ex_guitarist_johnny_marr/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/20/david_cameron_defies_smiths_ex_guitarist_johnny_marr/#comments Wed, 20 Feb 2013 14:09:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13206379 The British prime minister is on a tear: First, he has gone after Hilary Mantel for her comments about Kate Middleton. Now, David Cameron has made a vow to defy Smiths ex-guitarist Johnny Marr, who has "banned" the Tory from listening to music by the Smiths, reports BBC News.

In a story that recalls Paul Ryan's uninvited and unrequited declaration of love for Rage Against the Machine (and, for that matter, Chris Christie's obsession with Bruce Springsteen), the prime minister is a longtime fan of the new wave band — who split in the 1980s, and are perhaps best known for their songs "How Soon Is Now" and "Heaven Knows (I'm Miserable Now) — and has said so on many occasions. Marr has voiced his disgust, telling the BBC that this is "not allowed." But Cameron, who was on a visit to India, declared he'd "go on and listen,"anyway. In 2006, Cameron chose the Smiths song "This Charming Man" on Desert Island Discs.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/20/david_cameron_defies_smiths_ex_guitarist_johnny_marr/feed/ 16 Hilary Mantel under attack for calling Kate Middleton a “shop-window mannequin” http://www.salon.com/2013/02/19/hilary_mantel_under_attack_for_calling_kate_middleton_a_shop_window_mannequin/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/19/hilary_mantel_under_attack_for_calling_kate_middleton_a_shop_window_mannequin/#comments Tue, 19 Feb 2013 14:35:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13205327 Hilary Mantel, who has won the prestigious Man Booker Prize twice for her fictionalized retellings of life in the court of Henry VIII, is this week attracting attention for a different royal scandal: her scathing critique of the English media darling, Kate Middleton.  Mantel, who last year was asked to "name a famous person and choose a book to give them," expounded on the question in a speech republished in The London Review of Books, pairing the Duchess of Cambridge with "Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution."  This, the reader quickly realizes, is not meant to be a compliment:

"It’s not that I think we’re heading for a revolution. It’s rather that I saw Kate becoming a jointed doll on which certain rags are hung. In those days she was a shop-window mannequin, with no personality of her own, entirely defined by what she wore. These days she is a mother-to-be, and draped in another set of threadbare attributions. Once she gets over being sick, the press will find that she is radiant. They will find that this young woman’s life until now was nothing, her only point and purpose being to give birth."

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