Manet self portrait fetches record £22m at London sale

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment_and_arts/10386048.stm

A self-portrait of French painter Edouard Manet, named ‘Manet a la Palette’ has been sold for a record sum of money. At Sutheby’s in London, the world oldest art auction house, the painting was auctioned at £22,441,250, the highest price ever paid for a Manet painting. The previous record was at 16 million pound sterling. The painting that was made between 1878 and 1879 shows a bearded Manet in a bowler hat, holding a thin painting brush. Experts say the high price was due to it only being one of two self-portraits ever made by the French Impressionist.

How special this particular painting may be, because it is one of his few self-portrait paintings, I still think it is strange that this painting collected so much money. It has always been regarded as Edouard Manet’s lesser work, with less artistic value than his other works. And still there are collectors who are prepared to pay such an extreme amount of money for it. Is it something of the recent times? It has caught my eye that a lot more art prices have reached records. Maybe it is because of the economic crisis, and art is seen as a stable investment in these hard times.

Boy detained for Facebook insult murder in London

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/england/london/10372678.stm

A 16-year-old boy, whose identity is concealed, was ordered to serve a jail sentence of at least 14 years today, after a murder he committed last December. The then 15-year-teenager stabbed a former 18-year-old friend to death after he called the younger teenager a ‘pussy’ on the social networking website Facebook. Their former friendship turned into an ongoing fight between the two, with name calling back and forth in real life and on Facebook. Judge Nicholas Loraine-Smith condemned the stabbing as ‘an act of cowardice’. The defendant did not deny the stabbing, but claimed it was self-defence.

In my opinion, this is a deserved punishment. The teenager simply stabbed his former friend because felt a loss of honour, and he wanted to express his manliness, a pathetic thing to do over the life of another. Killing is never justified, not even for name-calling. One peculiar thing about this news case is that it is titled as if it is a murder committed over Facebook. It almost implies that Facebook is the cause of this poor death. But the thing is, he might as well have called him ‘pussy’ on the telephone or in a letter, but the website Facebook is strongly mentioned.

Late-night bars and pubs face levy to meet cost of policing binge drinkers

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jun/20/late-night-bars-pubs-levy-policing-binge-drinkers

From now on, local authorities have the possibility to force late-night bars and pubs to pay an additional fee. Normal closing time for pubs in the UK is 11 pm, but some can request a license to stay opened longer. However, the late-night pubs are commonly associated with alcohol caused nuisance. Especially the binge drinking, drinking as much as possible to become drunk, is a problem in the pub life in the United Kingdom. Half of all violent crimes are caused by attackers under the influence of alcohol. This costs police forces an annual 7 billion pounds.

The British pub is so much different from what we know as a café here in the Netherlands. The pub, short for public house, is a place for people to gather in their spare time. This can even be on the middle of the day, as opposed to the nightlife here in the Netherlands. I can imagine this can lead to problems with alcoholism, so I can understand the pubs close early. Another thing I can imagine is that the visitors from the early closing pubs going off to the late-night pubs, with all the consequences that come with it.

Isle of Wight prison helicopter escape foiled

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/england/10348632.stm

From within the prison, convicted murderer Brian Lawrence, age 67, planned a sophisticated escape using a helicopter. Using lemon juice as invisible ink and hidden codes in Sudoku puzzles he communicated with his accomplices. The plan was to land a helicopter in the courtyard, and use the yearly Isle of Wight Festival as a cover. However, his plans were unfolded when prison guards found a suspicious sentence in one of his letters. This lead to further investigation, and the guards eventually found the hidden writing on the paper. The man was sentenced to minimally 21 years in prison, after murdering one person, and planning another two.

These adventurous stories always immediately remind me of films as ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ and ‘Alcatraz’. Indeed the fantastic idea to use cliché methods like lemon juice is obviously inspired by Hollywood. For some reason, these brave attempts at escaping, using ingenious ways always leads me to sympathise with the prisoners. This is with no doubt fuelled by such earlier mentioned romanticised films. Of course, this man is still a convicted murderer, but it would be amazing if he would be able to outsmart the prison guards.

BBC receives 545 vuvuzela complaints over World Cup

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment_and_arts/10317767.stm

They are massively popular in South Africa, the loved and hated vuvuzela. These plastic horns are brought into the stadiums during the World Cup games, where thousands play them. The loud horns create a massive wall of noise, annoying not only the players on the field, but also the viewers at home. BBC costumers have complained, but the broadcasters stand powerless. World Cup officials have ruled out banning them. Muting is impossible, say acoustic experts, since would affect the commentary and other stadium sounds. Cutting off the frequency of the tune is no option either; it is exactly the same as human speech, muting that in the same process.

Indeed, the sound of the vuvuzelas creates a very annoying sound, resembling a huge flock of bees. Even the distinctive thumps of the football are not audible on television. As much as I would like it, it would be ridiculous to have them banned from the stadiums altogether. It would be the same if the Dutch fans were not allowed to wear orange anymore, just because the majority of the other fans find it an annoying colour. However, if the noise becomes a distraction and disruption of the game, which it does, it should seriously be considered in my opinion.

James Cameron apologises for Bloody Sunday

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/northern_ireland/10320609.stm

Following the 200 million costing inquiry on the events on 30 January 1972, dubbed ‘Bloody Sunday’, Prime Minister James Cameron apologises for the mistakes made on that day. Thirteen deaths and fourteen wounded were counted on that day in Derry, Northern Ireland, and were all marchers in a civil rights demonstration. Paratroopers opened fire when confusion about an alleged firearm in the crowd rose. The inquiry that took 12 years to complete concluded that the highly-strung paratroopers lost all self-control, and opened fire without warning, hitting civilians that were fleeing or helping the injured.

It is the first time the British government officially apologised for their actions on that day. Until this point there has been a lot of finger pointing on who is the alleged culprit of the drama. The army accused the marchers of shooting first, but no fired weapon was ever found. In my opinion, I find it strange that Tony Blair set such an inquiry up only 12 years ago; this should have been investigated much earlier. However, I do understand that is stays an extremely controversial subject on both sides. It is just one of the many of incidents in the Northern Ireland conflict.

Householders to be given new rights to defend themselves against intruders

http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2010/jun/06/householders-rights-laws-intruders-burglars

Following several high-publicity cases in which homeowners violently defended themselves against intruders who formed a threat for them and their families, one of which resulted in a the murder of a 16-year old burglar, the discussion around the topic of home protection has sparked off. Justice secretary Kenneth Clarke has proposed an increase in legal protection for homeowners who fight off intruders when police interference has not been possible, including passerby intervention and actions of selfless heroism. The plan has been criticized by senior police officers, who fear that it could lead to dangerous vigilante and exploitation when not regulated properly.

The propose inclines to populist attitudes, in my opinion. The legal protection goes along perfectly with the constantly increase in feelings of insecurity in the last years. Indeed it could lead to dangerous situations in which trigger-happy homeowners seek safety behind illegal firearms and improvised weaponry, and relying on their safe status in court. Another consequence could be a decrease in confidence in police forces. The public no longer relies on police safety, but rather takes the law in its own hands, leading to more deaths than with police intervention. I fear this all could lead to the iconic American ‘get off of my property’ mentality.

Brown apologises for ‘bigoted woman’ remark.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/election_2010/8649012.stm

After a short, but heated conversation with sixty-five year old Gillian Duffy about several issues that regarded her directly, Prime Minister and Labour leader Gordon Brown did not notice that his radio microphone was still functioning as the sensitive ear of the press. Off-camera, as Brown drove away, he expresses his annoyance of the woman, and reportedly called her a ‘bigoted woman’. When asked about the incident on Radio 2 later that day, Gordon Brown expressed his regret. Brown later apologised to the life-long Labour voter Duffy in person on the phone, but the woman still expressed her dissatisfaction despite the apology.

As a human, it is quite understandable that their voters can annoy a politician, when they criticise what they may not understand, for example. But a public figure that is so depended on it’s own voters should always be very correct in their expressions. Degrading a simple voter is never wise, even in the seemingly safe environment of a closed car. The press is everywhere. Sadly for Brown, this blunder comes at the worst time he could have possibly feared. The elections are at the doorstep and his reputation is the lowest in his career. Could he have committed political suicide?

Google releases tool to show government censorship requests

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/apr/20/google-google-street-view

Today Google released a controversial new online tool. The visual world map shows each individual country requests for removal of data or request for user information. Although it does not show the specific cases, it shows the amount of requests and subsequent complies. Google, often claimed to be the forerunner of the battle against internet censorship, states that this clarification will lead to less censorship. The alleged requests include only government cases, thus user ‘flagging’ has not been included. Currently, the greatest remover is Brazil, with 291 requests for removal of data. The UK, has made 1,166 requests for user data in the latter half of 2009.

The censorship of data on the Internet has taken interesting forms in recent times. When exchange of files and information happens so quickly and massively, it can be near impossible to regulate flow of certain data, especially sensitive information. The news of an attempt to censor such information spreads similarly in magnitude. This leads to a great demand for the censored information, since users want to know why it was censored in the first place. This so-called ‘Streisand-effect’ has occurred frequently in recent years, for example the infamous 2007 USA video, in which Iraq journalists were mistaken for insurgents, and subsequently shot.

Chaos persists as Europe flights resume

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8633451.stm

The lockdown of the airspace above Europe has been called off, but the chaos among travellers has not ceased a bit. The ash cloud that covered the United Kingdom and West Europe was allegedly too dangerous for planes to fly through, since it posed as a threat for engines and instruments. For safety reasons airplanes were kept on the ground, leading to thousands of stranded travellers. Due to the shape of the cloud, not every country has opened its airspace yet; leading to a holey cheese that made the start up of the air travel more complicated and subsequently slowed it down.

Of course, the whole situation may have been horrific for all the homebound travellers, but honestly, I was fascinated by the whole chaos. With all the modern technology, on which we blindly trust, we are propelled back to ancient times by an old volcano somewhere on Iceland. I was sceptical about the early precautious lockdown, however. I could not imagine the dust to be so devastating for the engines of an airplane. Thousands of planes fly through sand clouds on daily basis, and we never hear about them. But still, I’m glad the human lives are not worth taking the risk.