Fit To Drop 2: Tagged? No, I’m just trying to be healthy

Time to explain my first foray into a scientific approach to grow fitter, not fatter.
Last time I tried to stave off the years, while plodding the roads in training for the 2009 London marathon, I used a Garmin gizmo that monitored the miles, my speed and my heart rate.
Now I want to take a whole-life [...]

By Martin King | Notebook | Thursday, 12 August 2010 at 3:02 pm

Must watch: ‘Super Sad True Love Story’

I first noticed this when the highly regarded Russian-America author Gary Shteyngart was interviewed on Kurt Anderson’s radio show a few weeks back. The writer’s new novel Super Sad True Love Story, a dystopian satire set in the not too distant American future, is getting rave reviews in the US at the moment (read a [...]

By Larry Ryan | Arts | Thursday, 12 August 2010 at 2:41 pm

Top of the posts: Boars, black-ops and Bullock

There are lies and damned lies, and then there’s our list of the top blog posts of the last week.

By Jack Riley | Notebook | Thursday, 12 August 2010 at 2:16 pm

Land rights: 100,000 people will march

In 2007, 25,000 people marched for a month across India, to campaign for improved land rights. Some 21.8 million people – usually the countries’ poorest – have been displaced from the land they had been living and working on for generations, as corporations and industry move in.
PV Rajagopal, an Indian activist for charity Ekta Parishad, [...]

By Holly Williams | Notebook, The Foreign Desk | Thursday, 12 August 2010 at 1:49 pm

Online fury: Can you give it AND take it?

I was watching a rerun of the TV show Russell Howard’s Good News on BBC2 the other night. I’ve never really understood Russell’s appeal, but I’m also aware that the fact the show debuted on BBC3 means that I’m not really intended as the target audience, in the same way that Snog, Marry Avoid, or [...]

By Rhodri Marsden | Notebook | Thursday, 12 August 2010 at 12:36 pm

Richard Littlejohn thinks the suicides in Chinese factories are really, really funny

Remember the horrific story about the suicides and mass deaths in Chinese factories where they are manufacturing stuff for us that I wrote about last week? Well, Richard Littlejohn thinks they’re hilarious. (You have to scroll to the end.) Really. He uses a football chant to describe young men and women hurling themselves to their [...]

By Johann Hari | Eagle Eye | Thursday, 12 August 2010 at 12:17 pm

Anatomy of a Bust-Up

It isn’t the political scandals or the Welsh football team that have caught the eye of Welsh readers this week – it’s ‘Hooters’. So why is the restaurant chain, with it’s heady mix of fried chicken and scantily clad hostesses, causing an almighty row in Cardiff?

By Rob Williams | Notebook | Thursday, 12 August 2010 at 12:06 pm

Real history: The First of the Few on film

I don’t believe it’s widely known that the wartime [propaganda] film ‘The First Of The Few’ contained real action footage and shots of real RAF crew.

My uncle, Marcus Beatty, was among them and features with a speaking part near the beginning of the film, in a scene where his flight returns from a mission and discusses (possibly scripted – not sure) their kills.

By Matilda Battersby | Notebook | Thursday, 12 August 2010 at 10:36 am

Real history: The Battle of Britain – view from a Luftwaffe air gunner

After attacking two Me 109’s without any visible damage, I dived down onto bombers, selecting one He 111 on a SE course. Adopted full beam, attacked slightly in front from 1000 feet with 2 second burst, and saw port engine stop and E/A drop out of formation. Followed this E/A down doing four more attacks with short bursts, all on the beam and saw second engine stop and port engine in flames. This E/A landed on the beach at West Wittering.

By Matilda Battersby | Notebook | Thursday, 12 August 2010 at 9:32 am

Was a Mosquito trailed by a flying saucer?

Oliver Kamm took advantage of my absence to try to reclaim the series of Questions to Which the Answer is No, the idea for which I copied from him in the first place, with this classic from my own newspaper, The Independent: “Did Churchill and Eisenhower cover up UFO encounter?”
I had seen only the version [...]

By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Thursday, 12 August 2010 at 9:23 am