Labour MP John McDonnell this week called on Unison, Britain’s biggest public sector union, to hold an inquiry into an alleged “witchhunt” of lay officials conducted by union officers.
Archive for December, 2009
New constitution to follow Morales’ re-election
By Tribune Web Editor /Thursday, December 10th, 2009Bolivian President Evo Morales secured a resounding victory in last week’s general election, paving the way for the leftist leader to implement a new constitution for the country.
By Tribune Web Editor /Thursday, December 10th, 2009
A mere three days after it launched, a satellite channel praising Saddam Hussein has stopped broadcasting. It was denounced by some commentators as a tool of that absolute shower, the Baath Party, but others were curious to see what it had to offer. “Strictly Come Saddam”, perhaps, or “The Saddam Factor”. In fact, Saddam TV [...]
By Tribune Web Editor /Thursday, December 10th, 2009
Rail union RMT has blasted Network Rail chiefs as it emerged they are holding meetings in the lavish surroundings of the Langham Hotel in London while multi-billion pound cuts have left 1,500 essential safety maintenance staff facing the sack. The Network Rail board met at the Langham on Wednesday this week (December 2) and the [...]
FILM: All’s well that showcases the brilliance of Orson
By Tribune Web Editor /Thursday, December 10th, 2009Me and Orson Welles
Director: Richard Linklater
Can there possibly be anyone out there who’s an ardent fan both of the current teenage heart-throb best known for playing Troy Bolton in the High School Musical franchise and the wayward 20th century genius who gave us Citizen Kane? If so, this hypothetical individual will feel Christmas has come a little early if Me and Orson Welles – in which the heart-throb (Zac Efron) is the “Me” and Christian McKay plays Welles – arrives in cinemas. Set over the course of one implausibly incident-packed week in November 1937 and based on Robert Kaplow’s novel, Me and Orson Welles follows greenhorn high-school kid Richard (Efron) as he stumbles into a supporting role in Welles’ radical Broadway adaptation of Julius Caesar. He’s cast as a lute-player in a scene which, as the director airily informs him with his trademark jocular intellectualism, is there to “humanise” the character of Brutus.
BOOKS: No point picking up a pen unless you stab someone with it
By Tribune Web Editor /Thursday, December 10th, 2009A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks
Hutchinson, £19.99
Gabriel Northwood, a poor and hence worthy barrister, says in Seven Days that a good book is “based on what’s real but with the boring bits stripped out”. Exactly how much reality is included in this book is undoubtedly reflected in the fact that there are disclaimers (“characters not based on anyone, honest, your honour”) at both the front and the back. Clearly Mr Faulks is taking the opportunity to settle a few scores, which is always a good sign. After all, there’s no point in picking up a pen if you’re not going to stab someone with it.
THEATRE: Only the lonely – revels, revelations and insoluble situations
By Tribune Web Editor /Thursday, December 10th, 2009The Priory
Royal Court, London
If it’s not quite the time of year to start making New Year resolutions, then it’s not far off. Everywhere, you can read the signs: bright lights on the main shopping streets, merry cash registers ringing and the sound of Yule logs being felled in empty forests. Plus there are chronic gift anxieties and a grim foreboding about the coming general election year. In The Priory, Michael Wynne’s new comedy at the Royal Court, a New Year’s Eve party gives us a taste of what’s to come.
FILM: Jesus Christ superstar – the fairy tale and the reality
By Tribune Web Editor /Thursday, December 10th, 2009Nativity!
Director: Debbie Isitt
The first thing that has to be said about Nativity!, director Debbie Isitt’s latest improvised ensemble comedy, is that it is an entertaining crowd-pleaser. The premise, about a failed actor turned frustrated Coventry primary school teacher, Paul Maddens (Martin Freeman), whose fraudulent claim to local rival Gordon Shakespeare (Jason Watkins) that his new nativity production has “attracted the interest of Hollywood”, is a cue for some enjoyable infant high jinks.
BOOKS: High windows
By Tribune Web Editor /Thursday, December 10th, 2009Through the Square Window by Sinéad Morrissey
Carcanet, £9.95
Sinéad Morrissey was born in Portadown, County Armagh, in 1972, brought up in Belfast and educated at Trinity College, Dublin. She is the author of There Was Fire in Vancouver (1996), Between Here and There (2002) and The State of the Prisons (2005), the last two of which were shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize. After spending several years abroad, in New Zealand and Japan, she is now back home in Ireland, lecturing at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen’s University, Belfast.
VISUAL ARTS: Surface and form made to measure with verve and vibrancy
By Tribune Web Editor /Thursday, December 10th, 2009Terra Incognita: Italy’s Ceramic Revival
Estorick Collection, London
While ceramic artists in Britain in the decades before and following the Second World War sought to deal with, address and even adopt the Anglo-Orientalism as advocated by Bernard Leach, who was also following the footsteps of William Morris, artists in Italy had no such direction. The work of Leach and his followers aimed for the “moral” pot – skilfully thrown and covered with sombre, earthy glazes and muted decoration. Most saw the issue of functionalism as a vital reference point.