Tears still, but Whitehaven moves on with festival

Whitehaven, still sore after the Derrick Bird shootings of June 2nd, put aside its troubles and joined together for the annual Whitehaven Festival

By Alan Cleaver | Notebook | Monday, 28 June 2010 at 12:20 pm

The march of bossy women on television

I have a column in this morning’s Arts pages, in which I express my distaste for the increasing number of bossy women on television, who have shows designed around them.
My main gripe is a moral one, about poor people being used as tools for the benefit of selfish D-list celebrities, on the spurious grounds that [...]

By Amol Rajan | Eagle Eye | Monday, 28 June 2010 at 11:05 am

Wedding Crashers

A new survey reveals over two thirds of women would wear jeans to a wedding. Why?

By Harriet Walker | Fashion, Notebook | Monday, 28 June 2010 at 10:49 am

Pushing for a podium finish with just 18 miles to go

It’s 5.42am and we’ve passed the Fastnet Rock, have Qingdao just off to port and are battling it out with them for third place. Funny that we’ve gone 2,000 miles and have ended up in the same place at the same time with just a few hundred metres between us. Both are flying full main [...]

By Emma Bamford | Sport | Monday, 28 June 2010 at 6:16 am

The Wisest Thing a Rival Said

In today’s Observer Labour leadership Q&A all five candidates are asked:
What’s the wisest thing a fellow candidate has said?

All the answers are revealing:
David Miliband – The wisest thing was Diane pointing out that the Tory cuts don’t change their way of life, it’s everyone else’s lives that will change.
Ed Balls – At the Fabian hustings, [...]

By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Sunday, 27 June 2010 at 10:45 pm

The Economics of Welfare Reform

I did not have space in my article for The Independent on Sunday today, on why welfare reform may be the issue that breaks the coalition government, to go into much detail. (Actually I was having too much fun being silly about things being “unavoidable”.) So my comments on housing benefit might have been a [...]

By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Sunday, 27 June 2010 at 10:26 pm

World Cup: Was Germany 4 England 1 the greatest match ever?

After hiking to and from Durban for the much vaunted clash of Jogo Bonito it was a blessing to sit back and watch two European sides rarely associated with attacking verve go at other hammer and tongs for the full 90 minutes.
The spectacle may have left many watching at home with a bitter taste in [...]

By Tim Sturtridge | Sport | Sunday, 27 June 2010 at 7:13 pm

Unlikely porn habits of the average straw man

As straw men go, this is a baffling one. There’s absolutely no need to create a spectral figure to condemn pornography, and the people who watch it: there are totally viable arguments about the effect it has on men’s attitude to women, the cultural creep from the top shelf to the rest of the media, [...]

By Archie Bland | Eagle Eye | Sunday, 27 June 2010 at 1:27 pm

250 miles to go

We’re all starting to get a bit de-mob happy now because, if the winds stay strong and with us, we should be in Ireland on Monday morning. That would mean it has only taken us nine days to cross the Atlantic, compared to the estimate of 14. We’re chasing down Cork and reckon if we [...]

By Emma Bamford | Sport | Sunday, 27 June 2010 at 4:16 am

Africa continues to dream

South Africa and the whole of Africa will not sleep tonight, as the Black Stars have written history. They were the only African team to make it to the final 16 and are the 3rd African country in the history of the World Cup to make it to the quarterfinals, after Cameroon and Senegal. The [...]

By Nkosazana Zuma | Sport | Sunday, 27 June 2010 at 1:20 am