Barclays bonuses cut by £450m February 27, 2013 Sky News reports that Barclays will be reducing its staff bonus pool by £450m. This comes as a result of the Libor-rigging scandal, and is in excess of the £291m fines imposed by US and UK regulators. Barclays will still award £1.8bn in bonuses to staff. This has not yet been confirmed by Barclays. The [...]
Fair enough: Art 13 is coming to London and it’s bringing the rest of the world February 27, 2013 THE ART world is expanding and the capital’s newest fair is making sure London isn’t left behind. With galleries from Brazil (pictured) to Johannesburg to Tel Aviv all exhibiting, Art 13 a global art fair for a global city. Prices range from £100 to £500,000, so there is something for personal and commercial collectors alike. [...]
Boxing with Bellows February 27, 2013 LIFE WAS hard in the early twentieth century. War and industrialisation brought about a revolution in art. Cubism, futurism and constructivism ushered in a blockish future of hard edges and fragmented forms. American realist painter, George Bellows (1882–1925) had a different reaction to the onset of modernity. While European masters turned to abstraction, Bellows fixed [...]
A bloody good Valentine gift February 27, 2013 WHEN MY Bloody Valentine announced UK tour dates late last year, few fans regarded it as anything more than the victory lap of the band’s triumphant live reunion in 2008. Fewer would have imagined that they might play not only tracks from the fervently beloved Isn’t Anything and Loveless but unveil new material for the [...]
David Bowie, the man who made it normal to be weird, still has the ability to shock 30 years after his heyday February 27, 2013 ON 8 January this year, David Bowie marked his 66th birthday with a surprise new single. Silently uploaded onto the internet in the middle of the night, Where Are We Now? was released with no accompanying fanfare. There was no publicity campaign and no one saw it coming. The quietness that characterised its arrival was [...]
Booker and Oscar marriage is on the rocks February 27, 2013 IN THE 90s, Oscar couldn’t get enough of Booker. The English Patient, Schindler’s List and The Remains of the Day all proved irresistible to both Booker Prize juries and voters of the Academy Awards Since then though, the marriage of literary merit and Hollywood emotion hasn’t been quite so harmonious. Stuck in development hell for [...]
An inside look at the Cheney and Rummy show February 27, 2013 MICHAEL MOORE has a lot to answer for. His success has precipitated a flurry of documentary polemics. Right wing commentator Dinesh D’Souza’s 2016: Obama’s America was a huge hit with Fox News fans (including Fox’s owner, Rupert Murdoch). Using bombastic rhetoric and questionable scholarship, it aimed to show the “roots of Obama’s rage”, creating what [...]
Match made in Heaven February 27, 2013 MICHAEL WINTERBOTTOM is Britain’s most intriguing film- maker. Averaging a movie a year, he’s made a sci-fi love story (Code 46), one the most sexually explicit mainstream films ever released (9 Songs) and a trio of increasingly loose adaptations of Thomas Hardy novels. And when Hardy doesn’t inspire, he’s got Steve Coogan. The pair have [...]
From teen movie star to high art to Disney prince: the mad world of James Franco February 27, 2013 NORMAL PEOPLE don’t have “projects”. Normal people have jobs, social lives and hobbies; things they do for a living and things they do for fun. Projects fill the twilight of illustrious careers – they’re what successful people do when they’re bored with success. James Franco is famous for his projects. Since his career took off [...]
Aer Lingus deal blocked by EU February 27, 2013 The European Commission has blocked Ryanair's £600m deal to acquire Aer Lingus citing competition concerns. "The Commission's decision protects more than 11 million Irish and European passengers who travel each year to and from Dublin, Cork, Knock and Shannon. For them, the acquisition of Aer Lingus by Ryanair would have most likely led to [...]
