The Independent (London, England) back issues from February 2008:
So green and so dark
Feb 01, 2008 ... Michael Eaude The Accordionist's Son By Bernardo Atxaga, trans.Margaret Jull Costa harvill secker Pounds 18.99 (391pp) Pounds 17.09(free p&p) from 0870 079 8897 Bernardo Atxaga's imagination is rooted in the fictional villageof Obaba. Bucolic though it is, with river, woods, ...
NEW RELEASES
Feb 01, 2008; ... Drive-By Truckers Brighter Than Creation's Dark NEW WEST ***** It's been less celebrated than other, shinier trends in pop, butthe last couple of years have seen a revival of the kind ofstoryteller-rock with which Bruce Springsteen once dominatedAmerican pop culture. Bands such as ...
GREAT WORKS
Feb 01, 2008; ... The Swimming Hole (1885) Thomas Eakins Amon Carter Museum, FortWorth, Texas The painted world is still: this is well known. But making thatpoint, David Hockney once gave it a wise turn, saying that inpictures "things don't actually move. The figures are, and willalways remain, ...
Some hot dates with an ageing cosmos
Feb 01, 2008 ... John Gribbin The Age of Everything By Matthew Hedman universityof chicago press Pounds 14 (264pp) Pounds 13 (free p&p) from 0870079 8897 It isn't always a good idea for cobblers to stick to their lasts.Matthew Hedman is an astronomer based at Cornell University, and hisbook is ...
DON JUAN LORD BYRON
Feb 01, 2008; ... BOOK OF A LIFETIME When Byron died, a 14-year-old Tennyson carved his name into arock at Somersby. By the time he had made his own name, Byron'sreputation had declined; Wordsworth was ascendant. John Mortimeronce wrote about the sadness he felt on recognising that Wordsworthwas ...
PICK OF THE PICTURE BOOKS
Feb 01, 2008 ... Anyone more familiar with the Martin Parr version of the Britishseaside will be surprised by the photographs in this book, whichrepresent a far grander and more genteel picture of the chilly, home-grown holiday resort. Allan Brodie and Gary Winter, the authors ofEngland's Seaside Resorts ...
Out of the comfort zone
Feb 01, 2008 ... Barry Forshaw Cold in Hand By John Harvey heinemann Pounds 12.99(405pp) Pounds 11.69 (free p&p) from 0870 079 8897 Is the following a Britain that you recognise: violentconfrontations between young black males in urban areas, which endup with somebody bleeding from a stab wound or ...
About a boy, brutality and bureaucracy
Feb 01, 2008; ... The White King By Gyorgy Dragoman, trans Paul Olchvary DOUBLEDAYPounds 14.99 (318pp) Pounds 13.49 (free p&p) from 0870 079 8897 The narrator of the interconnected stories that make up thisunusual novel is an 11-year-old boy called Djata, growing up in abrutal fashion in a ...
The kindly side of Uncle Joe
Feb 01, 2008 ... Vanora Bennett Children's World By Catriona Kelly yale UP Pounds29.99 (714pp) Pounds 28.49 (free p&p) from 0870 079 8897 Stalin was no slouch at PR. But his greatest success in thisdepartment was probably the pictures showing him grinningbenevolently as he hugged a series of ...
The ghosts in the library
Feb 01, 2008 ... Bryan Cheyette My Unwritten Books By George Steiner weidenfeld &nicolson Pounds 14.99 (210pp) Pounds 13.49 (free p&p) from 0870 0798897 The polymathic George Steiner, both an avowed elitist and also atireless populariser, has always been something of a paradox. He isthe doyen of ...
COVER STORIES
Feb 01, 2008 ... As America heads towards Super Tuesday, the man who could be itsfirst black president is asked to take a firm stand on a number ofissues, including US anti-trust laws designed to protect Americanindustry. Questions have been raised about publishing, and the roleof Random House's owner: ...
A late show of force from the artist of dread
Feb 01, 2008; ... Duma Key By Stephen King Hodder & Stoughton Pounds 18.99 (581pp)Pounds 17.09 (free p&p) from 0870 079 8897 It is a mistake to think that only those writers and otherartists considered "major" have an identifiable "late style". Theworks of Stephen King which have followed his ...
Rooms of their own
Feb 01, 2008; ... Helen Dunmore is a prolific and prize-winning writer of poetry,fiction and children's books. But, she tells KATY GUEST, she and hercharacters need their own space Walking through her publisher's just-refurbished offices on theway to our interview, Helen Dunmore seems concerned ....
A Week in Books
Feb 01, 2008; ... This week I met the oldest writer in the world. True, the statueof the "Seated Scribe" in Room 42 of the Egyptian Museum in Cairodoesn't give interviews. He prefers to gaze dreamily out of darkobsidian eyes in search of inspiration - as he has done for 4,500years. But he does offer a ...
Blow-by-blow tales of one man's wind of change
Feb 01, 2008 ... Susan Tomes I Found My Horn By Jasper Rees weidenfeld Pounds14.99 (294pp) Pounds 13.49 (free p&p) from 0870 079 8897 There's a great appetite at the moment for TV programmes andbooks about people having a go at something they don't normally do.Celebrities learn to dance, people ...
Losing a war against cliche
Feb 01, 2008 ... Suhayl Saadi The Second Plane By Martin Amis jonathan cape Pounds12.99 (214pp) Pounds 11.69 (free p&p) from 0870 079 8897 This collection of essays, articles, book reviews and fictiondelineates its author's political trajectory since the destructionof the World Trade Centre in ...
Sarajevo's raiders of the lost archives
Feb 01, 2008 ... Helen Walasek People of the Book By Geraldine Brooks fourthestate Pounds 16.99 (356pp) Pounds 15.29 (free p&p) from 0870 0798897 In 1994, as the siege of Sarajevo ground on for another bloodyyear, rumours began to surface in ex-Yugoslav emigre communitiesabout the fate of the ...
An industry all at sea (on the Riviera)
Feb 01, 2008; ... Label bosses, managers, and publishers at the annual Cannes musicgathering this week tried to work out how to get their hands on themissing money they believe they're due. In between, they listened toartists old and new. PIERRE PERRONE was there Walking down the Croisette to the ...
Also Showing
Feb 01, 2008; ... Overlord (15) Stuart Cooper ***** This deeply affecting movie, first released in 1975 but almostforgotten, distils the run-up to the Normandy landings of June 1944into a lyrical, black-and-white dream of stoicism and sacrifice.Stuart Cooper made this docudrama in ...
Flee, scram - but take a Steadicam
Feb 01, 2008; ... FILM OF THE WEEK Cloverfield (15) Matt Reeves (84 mins) *** STARRING TJ Miller,Lizzy Caplan, Jessica Lucas You remember The Blair Witch Project - tight, low-budget, you-are-there horror movie? You also remember Godzilla - flabby, big-budget, why-am-I-here creature feature? ...
Visions of an inner world
Feb 01, 2008; ... Cut down by a stroke, J Bauby created a novel merely by blinking.Nicola Christie discovers how his life translated to the screen It's the Il Postino or the Life is Beautiful runner at theOscars; the small, special film that nobody quite saw coming. Itstarted life 11 years ago as a ...
Criminally enjoyable
Feb 01, 2008; ... When Alex Turner and Lightspeed Champion hit Madame Jojo's for asecret covers gig, all hell broke loose. OLIVER DUFF reports For sure, it is not the most eye-opening act to have trodden thestage boards in Madame Jojo's. That accolade goes to the Soho club'sportly former fancy dress ...
When unreality bites
Feb 01, 2008; ... As movies heavy with computer animation dominate the box offices,GEOFFREY MACNAB proposes a campaign for real films Is it time to begin a campaign for "real" films? The questionisn't as far-fetched as it might appear. Cinema is fast moving intoa new, digital (and some would say ...
Viva... Glasvegas!
Feb 01, 2008 ... They are inspired by Elvis Presley, Suicide, and Sixties girl-pop, but they come from working-class Scotland. gavin cumine meetsthe quartet making a big noise From the post-funk of Orange Juice and the intellectual pop ofBelle and Sebastian to the contemporary art-punks Franz ...
'I worked on this part for three years'
Feb 01, 2008; ... Again, there's method in his madness; Daniel Day-Lewis'snotoriously rigorous role preparation has yielded another Oscarcontender. He talks to CHRIS SULLIVAN Anyone who has seen Daniel Day-Lewis in Paul Thomas Anderson'sstorming "big oil epic" There Will Be Blood might wager that ...
'Pillows and Prayers', various artists, 1982
Feb 01, 2008; ... cult classics Released on Christmas Day 1982, at just 99p, Pillows and Prayerswent on to shift 125,000 copies and hold an almost permanent placeon the indie charts for a year. Mike Alway, Cherry Red's A&R man,came up with the idea, vamping a major-label tradition for issuingcheap ...
MAXINE PEAKE ACTRESS
Feb 01, 2008; ... CULTURAL LIFE Books After I saw the Bill Douglas film Comrades: A Lanternist'sAccount of the Tolpuddle Martyrs and What Became of Them, I wantedto know more about the director. Now I am reading Bill Douglas: ALanternist's Account. I'm also reading Deborah Martinson's ...
Caught in the Net
Feb 01, 2008; ... Dirty Pretty Things' Carl Bart may have been forbidden by hismanager Alan McGee from doing a Radiohead-style album giveaway, butThe Charlatans are following the trend by releasing their 10thstudio album as a free download. You Cross My Path will be availablefrom XFM's website xfm.co.uk ...
Viva... Glasvegas!
Feb 01, 2008; ... They are inspired by Elvis Presley, Suicide, and Sixties girl-pop, but they come from working-class Scotland. GAVIN CUMINE meetsthe quartet making a big noise From the post-funk of Orange Juice and the intellectual pop ofBelle and Sebastian to the contemporary art-punks Franz ...
Sounds to enthral the eyes
Feb 01, 2008; ... I've been listening to art recently - not aural sculptures orconcrete poetry, but the kind you hang on walls. Walking roundKenwood House in north London with the dog the other day, forexample, I listened to Fiona Rae's 1998 painting Night Vision, alarge abstraction that plays off areas ...
Bridge
Feb 01, 2008; ... In the quarter-finals of the 2007 Venice Cup, France ended asvictors against USA2 - by just 1 IMP. France gained 10 IMPs on thisboard through superior defence. South ended as declarer in FourSpades in both rooms after East for France had opened the biddingwith One Club, and the American ...
Opera
Feb 01, 2008; ... THE MIKADO Gielgud Theatre LONDON **** Step forward all those who remember the original Carl RosaCompany. No? Well, the name is alive and well, and, under theauspices of Raymond Gubbay, presenting Gilbert and Sullivan at theGielgud. It's a cosy idea, actually - the way things were ...
Dance
Feb 01, 2008; ... AMJAD Sadler's Wells LONDON ** Amjad, by the Canadian company La La La Human Steps, makes high-speed ballet a very slow experience. Choreographer Edouard Locktakes a fractured view of Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty, withclassical steps performed at flickering double speed ....
Chekhov sisters cry over their matzo
Feb 01, 2008; ... Theatre 3 SISTERS ON HOPE STREET Everyman LIVERPOOL *** For Olga, Masha, and Irina, read Gertie, May and Rita. Chekhov'sthree young women and brother Andrei (here Arnold), as portrayed inThree Sisters, have been uprooted in more than the usual sense. Thefirst theatre ...
Winter is upon us
Feb 01, 2008 ... It's been one of the milder Januarys. But the elements savedtheir worst for the last day of the month. By Emily Dugan Winter weather kicked in with a vengeance yesterday as icy galesand rain whipped the country and forecasters warned of blizzardstoday. A lorry driver aged 45 ...
Down-and-out TV newsreader finds a home
Feb 01, 2008; ... Seven weeks after the former ITN and BBC newsreader Ed Mitchell,who admitted a decade of heavy drinking, was found sleeping rough ona seaside bench in Brighton, he has moved into a flat. Using funds from a confessional newspaper interview he gavebefore Christmas and with the ...
Red roses to la dolce vita Team by team guide to the Six Nations Championship
Feb 01, 2008; ... ENGLAND Head coach Brian Ashton Captain Phil Vickery If Brian Ashton ever tended towards the revolutionary - he sayshe was never keen; some who worked with him during his first stintat Bath say something different - he is now positively Darwinian inthe strength of his ...
Chess
Feb 01, 2008; ... The Israeli International Championship took place in Maalot-Tarshiha from 7 to 15 January. With the influx of huge numbers of ex-Soviets, Israel is a verystrong chess country and even in the absence of their top playerBoris Gelfand, busy at Wijk aan Zee, the 10-player ...
'My mother once reminded me that it wasn't too late to apply to law school'
Feb 01, 2008; ... The 5-minute Interview Corey Johnson Actor Corey Johnson, 46, is a New Orleans-born actor working mainly inthe UK. He has appeared in films including 'United 93', 'The BourneUltimatum' and 'Hellboy', as well as BBC TV's 'Doctor Who' and thestage hit 'Frost/Nixon' ....
The Cotton club has just won a new fan
Feb 01, 2008; ... Last Night's TV EastEnders BBC1 Scams, Fiddles and Honest Claims CHANNEL 4 On EastEnders, Dot Branning, Dot Cotton as was, had the house allto herself: or, to put it another way, June Brown had the camera allto herself. Solitude, which for most of us, most of the time ...
The faces of the day >>
Feb 01, 2008 ... DAVID BECKHAM Left on 99 caps after being dropped from England squad IAN POULTER Shoots 70 ...
Renaissance men provide real test for Ashton's long game
Feb 01, 2008; ... Not so very long ago, certain influential people - most notablyin the boardroom of the Rugby Football Union and the productionsuites of the BBC - could be heard arguing that every Six NationsChampionship should end with a match between England and France,either at Twickenham or in ...
UN pledge on rock graffiti
Feb 01, 2008 ... World News IN BRIEF --Rabat The United Nations has pledged to investigate vandalismblamed on its peacekeepers in the Western Sahara where culturaltreasures including prehistoric rock engravings ...
Australian PM calls for manners on cricket field
Feb 01, 2008; ... Extra police will be on stand-by at a Twenty20 cricket matchbetween Australia and India in Melbourne tonight following a seriesof incidents that have marred the Indian tour. The Australian Governor-General, Sir Michael Jeffrey, who rarelycomments on public issues, delivered an ...
Surgeons' success rates 'must be public'
Feb 01, 2008; ... Britain's 6,000 surgeons must be more open about what they do andaccept assessment of the outcomes of their operations to guaranteepatient safety, according to the leader of their professional body. Allowing patients to check a doctor's performance record beforegoing under the ...
You write the reviews
Feb 01, 2008; ... THE LOVER/THE COLLECTION Comedy Theatre LONDON **** The chance to see talents as fine as Timothy West, Gina McKee,Richard Coyle and newcomer Charlie Cox in a Pinter double billshould have theatregoers heading for the West End. The Lover and TheCollection were written as separate ...
Hillary courts Deep South vote in Obama's backyard
Feb 01, 2008; ... Scan the crammed exhibition hall in downtown Atlanta where abeaming Hillary Clinton is on stage selling herself to more than5,000 cheering Georgia activists and you will know at once that noteveryone is ready to buy. Barack Obama's supporters are a littlequieter - he is not in town ...
Moyles threatens to depose Wogan as king of the airwaves
Feb 01, 2008; ... The relentless march of BBC Radio 1's most celebrated loudmouth,Chris Moyles, towards the title of breakfast show king continuedyesterday as the DJ posted a record-breaking audience of 7.31million listeners. Moyles' Radio 1 show is swiftly eating up what remains of his BBCrival ...
MILES KINGTON
Feb 01, 2008; ... Humorous columnist, broadcaster and the inventor of Franglais Miles Kington, who has died suddenly at the age of 94 afterapparently contracting a rare leg disease from a Madeira cakeallegedly sent to him by extremist followers of the late PhilipLarkin, was best known to readers of ...
YOUNG GUNS
Feb 01, 2008; ... This year's Six Nations provides the perfect stage for rugby'semerging talents. Bill Borrows talks to the rising stars determinedto be striking more than poses Shooting for the top The young man touted as the new Barry John is outside on a filthywinter night rolling around ...
JEREMY BEADLE
Feb 01, 2008; ... Loved and loathed TV prankster For two decades, Jeremy Beadle was television's arch prankster,rising to fame in the early 1980s as the chief purveyor of Game fora Laugh's jolly japes and hoaxes, before taking that element to hisown programme, Beadle's About. Playing tricks on ...
1884 FRIDAY 1 FEBRUARY
Feb 01, 2008 ... OED published The first part of the Oxford English Dictionary was published, asthe New ...
Allies say Blair is 'open-minded' on becoming president of Europe
Feb 01, 2008; ... Tony Blair is warming to the idea of becoming president ofEurope, according to friends, even though he would have to give uphis clutch of lucrative business appointments. Mr Blair's allies have previously played down the prospect of theformer prime minister taking the new ...
Wealthy 'avoid Pounds 13bn of tax every year'
Feb 01, 2008; ... Tax avoidance by large companies and wealthy individuals coststhe Government 25bn a year, the equivalent of 1,000 for everyworking person in Britain, according to research published today. The wealthy avoid tax worth 13bn while the country's largestfirms escape tax worth 12bn, ...
Young brothers behind Britain's record-breaking property deal
Feb 01, 2008; ... Christian and Nick Candy, the property moguls behind some ofcentral London's most exclusive developments, added the mostexpensive property deal in the UK to their already impressiveportfolio yesterday when the Ministry of Defence handed over ChelseaBarracks as part of a record-breaking ...
Doctor sections Britney Spears
Feb 01, 2008 ... World News IN BRIEF --Los Angeles Britney Spears was sectioned for assessment at amental health unit after being escorted there in a police convoy.The pop singer was taken to UCLA Medical Centre ...
Government blocks access to secret military papers on Diego Garcia
Feb 01, 2008; ... FREEDOM OF INFORMATION The role of the British-owned Indian Ocean island of Diego Garciain the detention of terror suspects remains unproven. There may bemore to know, says Robert Verkaik, Law Editor MPs and human rights group have accused ministers of a cover-upover ...
Jack The Giant deals a fresh blow to punters
Feb 01, 2008; ... The fortunes of ante-post punters did not take quite so macabre aturn yesterday as might be imagined from the news that setbacks haveruled out the ante-post favourite for both the next two big bettinghandicaps - one over fences at Doncaster tomorrow, and another overhurdles at Newbury a ...
Labour must focus on future, warns Clarke
Feb 01, 2008; ... Labour could be out of power for more than a decade if the party"gets it wrong" in the run-up to the general election, CharlesClarke, the former home secretary, has warned. Mr Clarke, MP for Norwich South, said Labour had "wasted much ofthe first half of this parliament" on ...
Capello's new order ensures all his players start off equal
Feb 01, 2008; ... In the benevolent reign of Sven Goran Eriksson, David Beckhamwent to one World Cup - in Japan - and one European Championship -in Portugal - while plainly a long way from full fitness. Yesterday Fabio Capello said that it just wouldn't do - not evenin a competitively meaningless ...
This could stir up some painful memories
Feb 01, 2008; ... It is summertime in the park. A young man is there, joshing andjoking with his friends. His girlfriend is there too, wearing longfloaty clothes and lots of beads. Someone is listening to a Bee Geestrack on their new-fangled Walkman. It is somewhere in the late1970s, he thinks, but he is ...
EU orders Italy to clean up Naples
Feb 01, 2008 ... European News IN BRIEF --Brussels The EU has ordered Italy to clean up Naples within amonth or face legal action. Talks this week with Italian authoritiesfailed to show they were adhering to EU waste management laws toresolve a festering rubbish collection crisis in the southern ...
Burglar's DNA found on salami
Feb 01, 2008 ... European News IN BRIEF --Berlin German authorities were able to pin a burglary committedin April last year on a suspected serial thief after he left a half-eaten slice of salami carrying traces of his DNA at a crime scene,police said. The 37-year-old Romanian man is accused of ...
One law for MPs, another for the rest of us
Feb 01, 2008; ... Anyone in need of a giggle, as we all are more than usual inthese economically unsettling times, is directed to the FourthReport into The Conduct of Mr Derek Conway by the Select Committeeon Standards and Privileges of the House of Commons. It isn't exactly a scream, but for those ...
THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Feb 01, 2008 ... 'As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have itsfascination. When it is looked upon as ...