News

Louisa Mellor Dec 7, 2017

UK kids wouldn’t have survived the 90s without The Crystal Maze, Knightmare, Gladiators and more…

Remember boredom? Boredom was to a nineties childhood what stress is to modern adulthood – a constant and inescapable presence, relieved only by television.

See related Gotham season 4 episode 7 review: A Day In The Narrows

The difference is, even television could be boring in the nineties. Grown-ups exclusively watched One Man And His Dog, The Budget and Ballykissangel, the sort of programmes that gave you Sunday-night-dread any day of the week. Try as you might to escape border collies, Kenneth Clarke and priests having harvest festival scrapes in picturesque Irish villages, it simply wasn’t possible. There were no streaming services to come to your rescue. Video rental was a birthdays-only treat. What else were you supposed to do? Read?

Every so often, a bright light would shine through, illuminating the murk of Ground Force and Oh,...

Richard Parsons, the former chairman of Citigroup who was chairman/CEO of Time Warner until he stepped down in 2007, has resurfaced in Harlem. He and wife Laura are opening two new uptown restaurants in Minton’s and The Cecil. Minton’s is a restoration of the famed 1930s/1940s Harlem jazz club Minton’s Playhouse. It will reside in the original location, redesigned as a contemporary jazz supper club. Next-door sister restaurant The Cecil will be an Afro-Asian-American brasserie that integrates the culinary traditions of the African Diaspora with traditional Asian and American cuisines. The Parsons have appointed their long-time friend and Cafe Beulah restaurateur Alexander Smalls as Executive Chef of both eateries. The Cecil opens September 23rd and Minton’s opens the following month. The original Minton’s Playhouse opened in 1938 and became an outpost for good jazz from the likes of Thelonious Monk, Kenny Clarke, Charlie Christian, Charlie Parker...

Richard Parsons, the former chairman of Citigroup who was chairman/CEO of Time Warner until he stepped down in 2007, has resurfaced in Harlem. He and wife Laura are opening two new uptown restaurants in Minton’s and The Cecil. Minton’s is a restoration of the famed 1930s/1940s Harlem jazz club Minton’s Playhouse. It will reside in the original location, redesigned as a contemporary jazz supper club. Next-door sister restaurant The Cecil will be an Afro-Asian-American brasserie that integrates the culinary traditions of the African Diaspora with traditional Asian and American cuisines. The Parsons have appointed their long-time friend and Cafe Beulah restaurateur Alexander Smalls as Executive Chef of both eateries. The Cecil opens September 23rd and Minton’s opens the following month. The original Minton’s Playhouse opened in 1938 and became an outpost for good jazz from the likes of Thelonious Monk, Kenny Clarke, Charlie Christian, Charlie Parker...

We have a negative balance of trade with the least competitive trading bloc in the world. Why would we want to stay part of it?

In deciding whether we want to be part of the EU we should ask ourselves whether or not it is advantageous to the UK to be part of that trading bloc. A trading bloc is advantageous if it enables us to access a larger free market for our goods and services. Economic theory from Adam Smith to David Ricardo shows that our prosperity is enhanced when we are able to focus on those goods and services that we are best at, and trade them with others who have different skills.

How is that going with our EU partners? Not very well judging by last year's Office for National Statistics figures. We have a negative balance of trade of £55.7bn with our EU partners: they sold...

Paul van Carter's crime drama shows that youth custody is still failing because we can't decide what we want from it

Many applauded the firm response to last summer's riots that saw an unprecedented influx into England's youth custody system. Fewer may have wondered how the new arrivals fared. In fact, according to the chief inspector of prisons, some were subjected to attacks by fellow inmates and some embraced gang culture themselves for the first time; at one youth jail, the number of new prisoners on suicide watch trebled.

This may come as little surprise to those who've seen Offender. Violence, suicide, bullying, drug-taking, bent screws and rioting are rife in the establishment in which it's set. Understandably, incarceration therein does nothing to divert Tommy, the film's once worthy young hero, from the wayward course on which he's embarked.

Filmgoers may wonder whether things are really this bad in such places,...

London, July 5: A prisoner has won the right to a keep a thermos flask of hot tea overnight after the new Prisons and Probation Ombudsman said that it was good for his health and that he deserved "decent treatment."

Nigel Newcomen Cbe, who had been appointed the new Prisons and Probation Ombudsman by Justice Secretary Ken Clarke in September 2011, took up the unnamed prisoner's case after hearing he had been denied access to hot drinks in his cell, the Daily Mail reported.

Newcomen agreed that banning access to hot drinks was in breach of the rules on how prisoners should be kept in prison.

The National Offender Management Service has now accepted the recommendation and agreed that prisoners should be provided with.

To profane a Botticelli with a knife is something likely to go down well even with the Windsor Knitting Club these days, less so forty years ago when John Berger literally did so on national television. Though staged for the benefit of an oblivious public, this iconoclastic gesture, accompanied by Berger’s declaration that “it is not so much the paintings themselves which I want to consider as the way we now see them,” your average prime time TV was not.

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of its original airing, the BFI is screening Berger’s seminal TV series Ways of Seeing, inaugurating “Broadcasting the Arts”, a new programme exploring the way(s) television has dealt with literature, music, theatre, dance and fine art. Judicious choice that of starting with this particular series—the focal point of this 1972 televisual experiment being that of investigating how the perception of images was...

Gossip abounds at the Oldie of the Year lunch as the great and good gather to exchange jokes, jibes and a bit of mild filth

Off to the Oldie of the Year lunch and some of the nicest gossip of the year. I noticed the magazine's slogan – "Buy it before you snuff it", which does not have quite the same cheery ring as, say, "It's naughty but it's nice". I bumped into the great children's illustrator Shirley Hughes, who was chatting to the celebrated TV critic Philip Purser, whom she had met only once since they learned ballroom dancing together in Wirral, Merseyside, some 70 years ago.

There was Lord West, the former First Sea Lord (the head of the army told him he envied his splendid title. West replied: "Then you would be the First Land Lord.") The former terrorism minister arrived wearing the first bowler hat I've seen, on a head,...

The Iron Lady is on the screens, but what kind of Britain did Margaret Thatcher leave behind?

• Get the data

The Iron Lady is on the screens and the legacy of Margaret Thatcher is being reassessed - even as a feminist icon.

At the same time, the 1980s is increasingly being seen as deep history - 50% of the Datablog team were born in the late 1980s and were just toddling into school when she resigned in November 1990.

If the past is a foreign country (they do things differently there), there is nowhere more foreign than May 1979, when the Conservatives entered Downing Street. In fact, it's getting increasingly difficult to tell - many of the datasets we rely on now weren't compiled until the early 1990s. So what kind of Britain did the country's first woman prime minister come to rule in 1979 - and how has it changed?

These are some...

As Hugh Grant and Milly Dowler's family give evidence, we must remember it is the courts who mete out justice, not the press

Magna Carta, Ken Clarke observed to the press types assembled at last week's Society of Editors conference, was a pretty conservative document: the product of a baronial revolt against monarchical excess. Given the document's influence, it might have appeared somewhat bold for the Society to bill its conference as Magna Carta II, though the venue did happen to be in Runnymede 800 years on. Yet the comparison may not be quite so unlikely, given what is about to happen in the high court this week, where a revolt of a different sort of aristocracy is about to begin from two groups of people accorded automatic respect today: victims and celebrities.

It may seem bizarre for the Leveson inquiry to move on to the Dowler family and Hugh Grant,...

Permission is being granted to a prisoner to father a baby from behind the bars with his partner through artificial insemination. The decision was based on Human Rights Act.Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke approved the inmate's request to have a child based on prisoner's "right to family life" under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act, reported Daily Mail.Earlier, another criminal Wayne Bishop, father of five, used the act to successfully appeal against an eight month prison sentence arguing that the judgment breached his human rights and not enough consideration was given to the plight of his children.Tory MP Philip Davies ...

Permission is being granted to a prisoner to father a baby from behind the bars with his partner through artificial insemination. The decision was based on Human Rights Act.Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke approved the inmate's request to have a child based on prisoner's "right to family life" under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act, reported Daily Mail.Earlier, another criminal Wayne Bishop, father of five, used the act to successfully appeal against an eight month prison sentence arguing that the judgment breached his human rights and not enough consideration was given to the plight of his children.Tory MP Philip Davies ...

Permission is being granted to a prisoner to father a baby from behind the bars with his partner through artificial insemination. The decision was based on Human Rights Act.Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke approved the inmate's request to have a child based on prisoner's "right to family life" under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act, reported Daily Mail.Earlier, another criminal Wayne Bishop, father of five, used the act to successfully appeal against an eight month prison sentence arguing that the judgment breached his human rights and not enough consideration was given to the plight of his children.Tory MP Philip Davies ...

Permission is being granted to a prisoner to father a baby from behind the bars with his partner through artificial insemination. The decision was based on Human Rights Act.Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke approved the inmate's request to have a child based on prisoner's "right to family life" under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act, reported Daily Mail.Earlier, another criminal Wayne Bishop, father of five, used the act to successfully appeal against an eight month prison sentence arguing that the judgment breached his human rights and not enough consideration was given to the plight of his children.Tory MP Philip Davies ...

Permission is being granted to a prisoner to father a baby from behind the bars with his partner through artificial insemination. The decision was based on Human Rights Act.Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke approved the inmate's request to have a child based on prisoner's "right to family life" under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act, reported Daily Mail.Earlier, another criminal Wayne Bishop, father of five, used the act to successfully appeal against an eight month prison sentence arguing that the judgment breached his human rights and not enough consideration was given to the plight of his children.Tory MP Philip Davies ...

Permission is being granted to a prisoner to father a baby from behind the bars with his partner through artificial insemination. The decision was based on Human Rights Act.Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke approved the inmate's request to have a child based on prisoner's "right to family life" under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act, reported Daily Mail.Earlier, another criminal Wayne Bishop, father of five, used the act to successfully appeal against an eight month prison sentence arguing that the judgment breached his human rights and not enough consideration was given to the plight of his children.Tory MP Philip Davies ...

Permission is being granted to a prisoner to father a baby from behind the bars with his partner through artificial insemination. The decision was based on Human Rights Act.Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke approved the inmate's request to have a child based on prisoner's "right to family life" under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act, reported Daily Mail.Earlier, another criminal Wayne Bishop, father of five, used the act to successfully appeal against an eight month prison sentence arguing that the judgment breached his human rights and not enough consideration was given to the plight of his children.Tory MP Philip Davies ...

Permission is being granted to a prisoner to father a baby from behind the bars with his partner through artificial insemination. The decision was based on Human Rights Act.Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke approved the inmate's request to have a child based on prisoner's "right to family life" under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act, reported Daily Mail.Earlier, another criminal Wayne Bishop, father of five, used the act to successfully appeal against an eight month prison sentence arguing that the judgment breached his human rights and not enough consideration was given to the plight of his children.Tory MP Philip Davies ...

Permission is being granted to a prisoner to father a baby from behind the bars with his partner through artificial insemination. The decision was based on Human Rights Act.Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke approved the inmate's request to have a child based on prisoner's "right to family life" under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act, reported Daily Mail.Earlier, another criminal Wayne Bishop, father of five, used the act to successfully appeal against an eight month prison sentence arguing that the judgment breached his human rights and not enough consideration was given to the plight of his children.Tory MP Philip Davies ...

Permission is being granted to a prisoner to father a baby from behind the bars with his partner through artificial insemination. The decision was based on Human Rights Act.Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke approved the inmate's request to have a child based on prisoner's "right to family life" under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act, reported Daily Mail.Earlier, another criminal Wayne Bishop, father of five, used the act to successfully appeal against an eight month prison sentence arguing that the judgment breached his human rights and not enough consideration was given to the plight of his children.Tory MP Philip Davies ...

Permission is being granted to a prisoner to father a baby from behind the bars with his partner through artificial insemination. The decision was based on Human Rights Act.Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke approved the inmate's request to have a child based on prisoner's "right to family life" under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act, reported Daily Mail.Earlier, another criminal Wayne Bishop, father of five, used the act to successfully appeal against an eight month prison sentence arguing that the judgment breached his human rights and not enough consideration was given to the plight of his children.Tory MP Philip Davies ...

Permission is being granted to a prisoner to father a baby from behind the bars with his partner through artificial insemination. The decision was based on Human Rights Act.Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke approved the inmate's request to have a child based on prisoner's "right to family life" under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act, reported Daily Mail.Earlier, another criminal Wayne Bishop, father of five, used the act to successfully appeal against an eight month prison sentence arguing that the judgment breached his human rights and not enough consideration was given to the plight of his children.Tory MP Philip Davies ...

Permission is being granted to a prisoner to father a baby from behind the bars with his partner through artificial insemination. The decision was based on Human Rights Act.Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke approved the inmate's request to have a child based on prisoner's "right to family life" under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act, reported Daily Mail.Earlier, another criminal Wayne Bishop, father of five, used the act to successfully appeal against an eight month prison sentence arguing that the judgment breached his human rights and not enough consideration was given to the plight of his children.Tory MP Philip Davies ...

Permission is being granted to a prisoner to father a baby from behind the bars with his partner through artificial insemination. The decision was based on Human Rights Act.Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke approved the inmate's request to have a child based on prisoner's "right to family life" under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act, reported Daily Mail.Earlier, another criminal Wayne Bishop, father of five, used the act to successfully appeal against an eight month prison sentence arguing that the judgment breached his human rights and not enough consideration was given to the plight of his children.Tory MP Philip Davies ...

Permission is being granted to a prisoner to father a baby from behind the bars with his partner through artificial insemination. The decision was based on Human Rights Act.Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke approved the inmate's request to have a child based on prisoner's "right to family life" under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act, reported Daily Mail.Earlier, another criminal Wayne Bishop, father of five, used the act to successfully appeal against an eight month prison sentence arguing that the judgment breached his human rights and not enough consideration was given to the plight of his children.Tory MP Philip Davies ...

Permission is being granted to a prisoner to father a baby from behind the bars with his partner through artificial insemination. The decision was based on Human Rights Act.Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke approved the inmate's request to have a child based on prisoner's "right to family life" under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act, reported Daily Mail.Earlier, another criminal Wayne Bishop, father of five, used the act to successfully appeal against an eight month prison sentence arguing that the judgment breached his human rights and not enough consideration was given to the plight of his children.Tory MP Philip Davies ...

Permission is being granted to a prisoner to father a baby from behind the bars with his partner through artificial insemination. The decision was based on Human Rights Act.Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke approved the inmate's request to have a child based on prisoner's "right to family life" under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act, reported Daily Mail.Earlier, another criminal Wayne Bishop, father of five, used the act to successfully appeal against an eight month prison sentence arguing that the judgment breached his human rights and not enough consideration was given to the plight of his children.Tory MP Philip Davies ...

The reaction to the justice secretary's rape remarks proves that true political discourse a thing of the past

This week's problem: where to find a quiet place in which to sit and think? Granted, most days are mighty shouty now, thanks to the echo chamber that is British politics. But even by our sandpaper-throated, pass-me-the-Nurofen standards, these past few have been close to deafening. Kenneth Clarke, the justice secretary, went on a radio programme (Victoria Derbyshire's yellfest on 5 Live) to discuss his plan to consult (please note: only to consult) on sentencing for crimes including rape and robbery (among the ideas he wanted to float was the concept that an increased discount be offered for an early guilty plea).

As he attempted to explain the nuances of sentencing, the way in which prison terms rise according to various "aggravated" circumstances and the discretion of the judge, he appeared to...

The race for the big prize hots up. Could Almodóvar pip Malick to the post? And down in the Marché, the hustlers are still at it

We're inside the Cannes Palais ahead of the morning screening, where talk has turned to Sunday and the announcement of this year's Palme d'Or winner. In actual fact the talk has been turning, fitfully, to Sunday since two Tuesdays ago, when this festival first kicked off, but by this point the delegates at least have some actual first-hand evidence to go on. Screen Daily's aggregate of reviews currently has Aki Kaurismäki's Le Havre ahead by a whisker although I still have hopes for The Tree of Life. In the view of Variety critic Leslie Felperin, Terrence Malick's far-reaching (over-reaching?) metaphysical odyssey is surely an all-or-nothing affair. To parcel it off with a conciliatory grand jury prize would almost be seen as an...

Hannah Rothchild's documentary The Real Pm? follows the infamous spin doctor around in the run-up to the election. But what might have been going through his mind as the cameras rolled?

On Have I Got News For You recently, Andy Hamilton recounted an anecdote about Peter Mandelson complaining to DJ Stuart Maconie about his "prince of darkness" image, claiming it was all much exaggerated, before slipping away to take a phone call in which he could be heard to hiss the words, "This. Must. Be. Suppressed!" It's a tale that chimes perfectly with what we believe of the man. With his saturnine demeanour, sharp features and fixed, menacing glower, he looks every inch the henchman, as if he is the real-life creation of some fine character actor.

In Hannah Rothschild's clever, punningly titled film Mandelson: The Real Pm?, Mandelson, the grandson of Labour grandee Herbert Morrison, visibly retains the...

The Danny Dyer episode has been linked to a laddish culture that started with Loaded. That's so wrong

Some of you may not be aware of Football Factory actor, and TV presenter, Danny Dyer, who appeared to give the following advice to a reader who wrote in to his Zoo magazine column about missing his ex: "I'd suggest going on the rampage with the boys, getting on the booze and smashing everything that moves. Then when some bird falls for you, you can turn the tables and break her heart. Of course, the other option is to cut your ex's face, and then no one will want her."

In the ensuing furore, ant- domestic violence and women's groups were rightly horrified. Dyer, who like many celebrity-columnists gave his contributions via phone interview, insisted he was "misquoted" and "devastated". Zoo blamed it on a "production error" and donated money to Women's Aid.

A former Times reader tells how the Guardian's iPhone app spurred him to try the paper version – and now he's hooked

Until Christmas, I'd largely been a Times reader. But then I got an iPhone, and in my search for free newspaper content, I turned, somewhat reluctantly, as I'd previously been a bit of a Guardian sceptic, to the Guardian's iPhone app.

I found myself drawn in by the thoughtful and original perspective that the Guardian's writers bring to bear on whatever topic they cover and the sheer quality of the writing. I noticed a distinctive atmosphere: it felt like walking into a club or a community for the first time. This spurred me into trying out the print version. I still enjoy the look and feel of a printed newspaper, and the way in which one can browse it in a way that hasn't been possible online, until the advent of the iPad.

Coinciding with the opening night of the Expo 2010 Shanghai, the Sacrifice partners (producers Toby Simkin, William Ong and authors Kenneth Clarke, Richard Daniels and Mark Troop) are pleased to announce the attachment of internationally renowned stage director, Bobby Garcia to direct the musical of Sacrifice. In addition to the feature film version, the musical is in development now to open in London's West End after an Asian workshop production.

A cast of respected British actors will play Margaret Thatcher's allies and deserters in an upcoming BBC Two drama charting her political downfall. Ian McDiarmid (Star Wars) has been cast as her loyal husband Denis, James Fox (A Passage To India) as foreign policy advisor Charles Powell and Robert Hardy (All Creatures Great and Small) as Willie Whitelaw. Others appearing include Philip Jackson (Poirot) as chief press secretary Bernard Ingham, Kevin McNally (Pirates Of The Caribbean) as Ken Clarke and Oliver Cotton (The Commander) as Michael Heseltine. (more)...