Basketball gets boost in £100m funding review October 28, 2014 BRITISH basketball could be set for a reprieve after UK Sport announced it is considering a radical shake-up of the way it distributes £100m of crucial central funding. The government agency’s current policy is to channel money only into sports that have demonstrated potential to provide Olympic medals within an eight-year time-frame. It has achieved [...]
Sponsors key to prize equality, says Pooley October 28, 2014 BRITISH cyclist-turned-duathlete Emma Pooley has warned that women’s prize money in some sports will continue to lag behind men’s as long as equivalent sponsorship revenue remains imbalanced. Sport minister Helen Grant yesterday called for more to be done to ensure gender pay equality after a study revealed three in 10 major sports still pay more [...]
Trainer Powell and former jockey Bradley cleared of rule breaches October 28, 2014 RACING chiefs have cleared trainer Brendan Powell and former jump jockey Graham Bradley of charges relating to the latter training horses under the former’s name. In the first case of its kind brought by the British Horseracing Authority (BHA), a three-day independent disciplinary inquiry yesterday found the pair not guilty of breaching any rules of [...]
Pop idol: British artist Allen Jones receives an overdue Royal Academy retrospective October 28, 2014 While Andy Warhol was throwing wild parties in The Factory on East 47th Street, another of pop art’s leading lights was plying his trade in an altogether less glamorous corner of the world. In 1961, Southampton-born Allen Jones took up a teaching position at Croydon College of Art after being expelled from the Royal [...]
Sohei Nishino’s dazzling Diorama Maps return to the Michael Hoppen Gallery October 28, 2014 The ancient art of map-making is hardly an art at all; minute precision and scientific attention to detail are the sacred virtues of the cartographer. But imagine a map of a different kind, one that reveals not the brute fact of a city’s physical landscape but the energy of its bustling streets. These are [...]
Smartest phone October 28, 2014 Vertu, the original and best luxury phonemaker, does it again with the Aster You need to hold the new Vertu Aster to appreciate its quality. Constructed in the UK from titanium and a choice of calf, karung (sea snake) or ostrich leather, it’s a stunning piece of manufacturing. A single 117 carat sheet of solid [...]
Beautiful things: Stanforth’s Kibo bike and Vertu’s titantium and snake skin smartphone October 28, 2014 New bike company Stanforth aims to combine the rugged performance of a mountain bike with the style and accessibility of its city sibling; a cycle that can tackle the daily commute and also tour the world. The product of this philosophy is the lightweight Kibo, which boasts a rigid steel frame (hand built from [...]
The Australian food revolution: Heston Blumenthal and Jamie Oliver are joining a new wave of top antipodean chefs October 28, 2014 A grizzled miner in grubby, cement-splattered overalls clutches the stem of a wine glass with blackened fingertips, sipping chardonnay while recounting a recent dining experience at one of the city’s top tables. “It was the worst pizza I’ve ever tasted. The base was too limp and the feta too salty; it totally overpowered the [...]
The art of theft: Why do thieves steal famous paintings when they’re so hard to sell? October 28, 2014 On a freezing Stockholm evening just before Christmas 2000, a group of six to eight Middle Eastern men put into action a plan they’d been working on for months. The group parked cars in the middle of the three central roads leading to the Swedish National Museum and set them ablaze. As fire engines [...]
The black tie dress watch: From classic Omega to definitive Cartier October 28, 2014 I suspect I’m not alone in greeting invitations advising a black tie dress code – the season being just about to kick off – with a weary groan. It’s not that I particularly object to it as a style, so much as the imposition: on the few occasions one wheels out the tux, it feels [...]