Benjamin Mendy: Premier League footballer for Manchester City cleared of sex attacks and rape January 13, 2023 Premier League footballer Benjamin Mendy has been cleared of sex attacks on four women, as jurors failed to reach verdicts on two others following a six-month trial. The Manchester City star, 28, sitting in the dock at Chester Crown Court, covered his face with both hands, gently rocking back and forth, as the jury foreman, [...]
Tar review: Cate Blanchett shines as a predatory composer January 12, 2023 ★★★★★ Cate Blanchett is a maestro playing a maestro in Tar, putting in a devastating performance in which she conducts the audience just as her character conducts the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. From the first time we see her, Lydia Tar – a fictional character with some pointed similarities to real-life luminaries of the classical music [...]
Halfords boss urges govt to help with labour market gap as profit guidance shrinks January 12, 2023 Halfords’ chief executive Graham Stapleton has called on the government to help fill a gap in the labour market as the group reduced its profit guidance from £60m to £50m. Stapleton said it couldn’t get “enough qualified technicians into our garages to meet demand” and that was hurting growth. According to the chief executive, the [...]
City’s Lord Mayor: London isn’t an “evil fairy godmother” dragging rest of the UK down January 12, 2023 The City of London’s Lord Mayor will tonight warn that the capital has been “cast as the villain in our national story” despite being an engine of economic growth for the whole country. Nicholas Lyons, who took on the role in November of last year, will tell a black tie dinner at Mansion House tonight [...]
The Square Mile and Me: Bill Blain on Bear Stearns, the Old Dr Butler’s Head and sailing on the Solent January 11, 2023 Each week we ask a City figure to tell us about what makes the Square Mile special. This week, it’s Shard Capital’s Bill Blain. What’s your first memory of the Square Mile? As a young Scotsman fresh to London, I thought the City was all bowler hats before a university chum invited me for lunch [...]
The landscape of Africa’s economy is changing drastically, are you invested? January 11, 2023 At the turn of the millennium, the United Nations recorded a population of 6bn people. By 2019 the score was 7.7bn people. And now, after analysing shifts in demographics, improved healthcare, sanitation, rights, and education, the United Nations predict the global population will reach 9.7bn by 2050. Boom time. Population growth is not expected on [...]
M3gan review: A Black Mirror-esque take on the classic murder puppet January 11, 2023 ★★★★☆ There is a proud cinematic tradition of haunted doll movies. You can trace the lineage back from Annabelle (first appearing in The Conjuring in 2013), through to Chucky (Child’s Play, 1988), all the way back to Hugo the ventriloquist’s dummy from 1945 horror anthology Dead of Night. Glossy new sci-fi horror M3gan picks up [...]
Sunak is right. If more Brits could do maths our economy might just start growing again January 11, 2023 Sunak’s understanding of maths was an important strength during his time as Chancellor. He is right in promoting a model for education that focuses on improving numeracy skills, writes Paul Ormerod According to Rishi Sunak, everyone up to the age of 18 should be learning maths. It was an idea widely disparaged when the prime [...]
“Elevated horror” movies ranked, from M3gan to Midsommar January 10, 2023 With new “elevated horror” movie M3gan coming out this week, I thought I’d round up some of the top films in this nebulous genre. While the label – largely disparaged by the film community – can be retrospectively applied to films from The Exorcist to The Shining, its use is a recent phenomenon, often used [...]
The M3gan dance – what is it and does it live up to the hype? January 10, 2023 New horror-comedy M3gan is out this week, and while it’s an excellent cautionary tale in its own right about the dangers of technology, the thing that has driven the internet into meltdown is a five second dance routine by the film’s robotic psychopath M3gan. The titular robot is an AI housed in the body of [...]