POUL NYRUP RASMUSSEN, president of the Party of European Socialists in the European Parliament, has welcomed the de Larosière report which calls on the EU to set up a new pan-European watchdog to oversee the much criticised financial services industry.
Archive for February, 2009
Rasmussen tells Barroso: now it’s a test of courage
By Tribune Web Editor /Thursday, February 26th, 2009Door to Nato remains open for Ukraine
By Tribune Web Editor /Thursday, February 26th, 2009NATO will continue to expand into the territory of the former Soviet Union, according to the secretary-general of the western military alliance.
Time to invest in first-class council housing
By Tribune Web Editor /Thursday, February 26th, 2009THE Government has been urged to help build Britain out of recession with a major new programme of council house construction.
By Tribune Web Editor /Thursday, February 26th, 2009
Should all British banks now be nationalised? You said: YES: 79%, NO: 21%
By Tribune Web Editor /Wednesday, February 25th, 2009
DAVID CAMERON is taking a leaf out of Gordon Brown’s book and is planning to raise his game to a global level. Not content with aspiring to be the next Prime Minister of Britain, the Tory leader reveals in an interview with Tory mag Total Politics that he has just switched from reading Who Runs [...]
TELEVISION: Terrific Terry and a leaf through Fiona’s family tree
By Tribune Web Editor /Wednesday, February 25th, 2009IN A world where celebrities will cash-in on any ache, twinge, bouts of angst, rotten childhoods and rehab diaries, there was something refreshing about watching Terry Pratchett: Living With Alzheimer’s, as he allowed us into his private world, not for blatant personal gain and certainly not to enhance his public profile for commercial reasons. This was a case of a famous person communicating honest experience and information about the most common cause of dementia – the physical deterioration of the brain.
THEATRE: Comedic riot of our own past and present prejudices
By Tribune Web Editor /Wednesday, February 25th, 2009England People Very Nice
National Theatre, London
STEREOTYPES are deadly: before you can kill someone, you have to dehumanise them – and that’s what stereotypes do. But can they also subvert our prejudices? Richard Bean’s new comic epic, England People Very Nice, is an eye-popping account of immigration, always a theme in which stereotypes figure strongly. Starting with cavemen, Romans, Saxons and Vikings, Bean soon settles down to tell the story of migration to the East End of London over some 400 years, from yesteryear’s French Huguenots to today’s Bangladeshis and Somalis. Caught in this historical sweep are Irish fleeing famine and Jews ducking pogroms.
FILM ROUNDUP: Go ahead, make your day – an icon gives us his Gran finale
By Tribune Web Editor /Wednesday, February 25th, 2009FOR what he has said will be his final appearance in front of the camera (although he still intends to direct, with a Nelson Mandela bio-pic starring Morgan Freeman in the offing), Clint Eastwood has chosen grumpy old man drama Gran Torino as his acting swansong. This is his second star vehicle to be named after an automobile (the other was 1990’s Pink Cadillac, which flopped), and one that draws on his extensive back catalogue. The Beguiled, Dirty Harry and The Outlaw Josey Wales are all referenced in various scenes.
CLASSICAL MUSIC: No operatic diddle – its Brahms on the fiddle
By Tribune Web Editor /Wednesday, February 25th, 2009Brahms – Violin Concerto and Double Concerto:Vadim Repin/Truls Mork/ Riccardo Chailly/ Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
Deutsche Grammofon
BRAHMS’ Violin Concerto is one of the big, grand romantic violin concertos and deserves to be treated well in the grand manner. This is what it gets here in this new recording by Vadim Repin and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under Riccardo Chailly.
BOOKS: Mozart on the slab
By Tribune Web Editor /Wednesday, February 25th, 2009Mozart’s Operas: A Companion by Mary Hunter
Yale University Press, £25
THIS book is written by a scholar who knows her stuff but whether it will prove a useful companion is open to doubt. The best sections of the book contain a description and discussion of the operas, sensibly laid out, and move from opera seria (the operas based on classical myths with orchestral recitatives, a form in which Handel excelled) such as Idomeneo and La Clemenza di Tito through the particularly German form of singspiel, to which Mozart contributed Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail (a masterpiece) and then on to the opera buffa such as Le Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Cosi fan Tutti.