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England Is Mine by Nicolas Padamsee review – a searing indictment of factionalism
Sun, 28 Apr 2024 14:00:06 GMT
The lives of two east London teenagers become fatally entwined in an assured debut novel addressing themes of masculinity and marginalisation
Ever wondered what you’d do if your musical hero got cancelled? This crushing scenario is brought to life in an impressive first novel by Nicolas Padamsee (one of the Observer’s best 2024 debut novelists). A nuanced and remarkably assured exploration of Britishness, toxic masculinity and the pernicious pull of the far right, England Is Mine charts a rapid descent into extremism fuelled by fandom and disillusionment.
David, one of two main characters, is a teenager of Iranian heritage living in east London. A social outcast who struggles with his image (bullies at sixth form call him “Makeup Boy”), he finds refuge in the music of Karl Williams, an outspoken solo artist who, during a show in Leeds, makes an Islamophobic comment about Muslim children being withdrawn from a local primary school because of LGBTQ teaching. “Could it be that maybe, maybe, Islam isn’t 100% compatible with western values?” he goads the crowd. “You tell me.” While initially reticent, David feels that the public backlash against Williams is excessive. This position becomes more entrenched after David is assaulted by two young Muslims – one of whom he knows from college – setting him on a dark path that spirals towards catastrophe.
Continue reading...The Department of Education is probing claims that the school discriminated against Palestinian and Arab students amid Israel’s war on Gaza.
The post “Kill All Arabs”: The Feds Are Investigating UMass Amherst for Anti-Palestinian Bias appeared first on The Intercept.
The blanket suspension of student protesters casts “serious doubt on the University’s respect for the rule-of-law values that we teach,” 54 law professors wrote.
The post Columbia Law School Faculty Condemn Administration for Mass Arrests and Suspensions appeared first on The Intercept.
The university suspended three students out of hundreds participating in an on-campus encampment to protest the Israeli government.
The post Columbia Suspends Ilhan Omar’s Daughter One Day After Omar Grilled School Administrators appeared first on The Intercept.
US secretary of state to discuss avoiding regional conflict amid fears about Israeli ground invasion of Rafah
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, will travel to Saudi Arabia to try to restart fraught ceasefire negotiations between Hamas and Israel and discuss efforts to prevent spiralling regional conflict, while other senior US officials claimed Israel was willing to listen to their fears about a ground invasion of Gaza’s southernmost city.
A delegation from Hamas, expected in Cairo in parallel to Blinken’s visit, said they would provide a response to an Israeli proposal focused on an initial hostage release.
Continue reading...More than 300 workers will take action over plans to introduce rosters that could force 250 of them out of jobs
Hundreds of Border Force officers at Heathrow airport will begin a four-day strike on Monday in a dispute over working conditions.
The Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) said more than 300 of its members will walk out from 5am on Monday to 7am on Friday.
Continue reading...Pope Francis, 87, met inmates, staff and volunteers at Giudecca jail during first trip outside Rome for months
The pope has met female prisoners in Venice who are stars of the Vatican’s pavilion at the Biennale contemporary art show, and urged the women to rebuild their lives in the first ever papal visit to one of the world’s biggest art gatherings.
Pope Francis, 87, arrived by helicopter in the courtyard of the women’s prison on the island of Giudecca, amid concerns over his health. He has not travelled outside Rome since visiting the French city of Marseille in September.
Continue reading...Burnley FC says it was informed about ‘offensive footage’ on social media from some of its supporters
A football fan has been charged with causing harassment, alarm or distress over alleged tragedy chanting during a Premier League match between Manchester United and Burnley.
Burnley FC said it was informed about “offensive footage” on social media from some of its travelling supporters at Old Trafford on Saturday afternoon.
Continue reading...The best way to understand the city is through its food, and the best guide is a Michelin-star chef who knows where to find succulent doners, crisp calamari and rich taramasalata
Saturday morning, 10am, and I’m sitting at a café table on a cobbled street in the Beşiktaş neighbourhood of Istanbul, sipping a glass of çay (Turkish tea) and waiting for breakfast. By the café entrance, a plump, grey-haired man in a crisp white apron is sharpening a knife, before slicing through what is generally acknowledged to be the largest doner kebab in Turkey. The kebab weighs 100kg, a meaty monster slowly cooking from the outside in. Our guide, Sinan, tells us that Black Sea (Karadeniz) doners from this area are always the best – all of it will be gone by mid-afternoon.
Istanbul is a city that runs on its stomach. It may be steeped in history, but the best way to understand this multi-layered melting pot of east and west, Ottoman and Byzantine, is undoubtedly through its food. I’m lucky enough to be spending a couple of days with Cenk Debensason, recently awarded a Michelin star for his restaurant, Arkestra. The chance to discover the city through his eyes – and taste buds – promises a different version of Istanbul.
Continue reading...But first there’s that long drive to Holyhead
‘We should really check that,’ I say to my wife about our son’s passport, which we’d suddenly remembered might be going out of date soon. With a sharp dart of sweating horror, I grab it from the drawer and discover it has indeed expired, just two days earlier – and we are due to fly to Dublin in six days. We decide our only option is to book ourselves on to a later ferry instead.
The problem with the ferry is it means six hours of driving through England and Wales. (And if you’re wondering whether our kids were sick during this trip, you’ll be delighted to know that our daughter vomited twice before we’d even reached the M25. Our son, perhaps affected by the miasma, or maybe sensing a deficit in attention, caught up and was himself sick three times, before his sister chimed in with one last spew 20 minutes before we reached the boat, to make it a creditable 3-3 draw.)
Continue reading...For years, the political establishment opportunistically railed against sex trafficking. Then came Pizzagate.
The post QAnon Was Born Out of the Sex Ad Moral Panic That Took Down Backpage.com appeared first on The Intercept.
Two-year-old calf one step closer to reuniting with family group after tragic accident that left her stranded in remote lagoon
An orca calf, trapped for weeks in a remote lagoon in western Canada, has freed herself and is travelling towards open waters, hailed as “incredible news” by a growing body of human supporters.
The move puts her one step closer to reuniting with her family one month after a tragic accident left her stranded.
Continue reading...A measure passed by the House seeks to block Americans from traveling to Iran on U.S. passports.
The post House Responds to Israeli-Iranian Missile Exchange by Taking Rights Away From Americans appeared first on The Intercept.
The web has become so interwoven with everyday life that it is easy to forget what an extraordinary accomplishment and treasure it is. In just a few decades, much of human knowledge has been collectively written up and made available to anyone with an internet connection.
But all of this is coming to an end. The advent of AI threatens to destroy the complex online ecosystem that allows writers, artists, and other creators to reach human audiences.
To understand why, you must understand publishing. Its core task is to connect writers to an audience. Publishers work as gatekeepers, filtering candidates and then amplifying the chosen ones. Hoping to be selected, writers shape their work in various ways. This article might be written very differently in an academic publication, for example, and publishing it here entailed pitching an editor, revising multiple drafts for style and focus, and so on...
We would like to hear about your favourite, most useful everyday utensil
What’s your favourite, most useful everyday gadget? It could be a much-used kitchen gizmo, a tool for your daily beauty routine that you can’t live without, or a piece of kit that makes your day-to-day life easier: anything small, genuinely useful, and inexpensive to buy (nothing over £20).
Continue reading...The White House brushes off accusations of hypocrisy, courting TikTok while seeking to ban it.
The post As Biden Cheers TikTok Ban, White House Embraces TikTok Influencers appeared first on The Intercept.
The state says EMTALA, a law barring discrimination in emergency medical care, interferes with its abortion ban.
The post Idaho Goes to the Supreme Court to Argue That Pregnant People Are Second-Class Citizens appeared first on The Intercept.
With stunning sunsets, one of the most beautiful beaches in the Mediterranean and must-see medieval cities, Croatia’s coast and islands are nothing short of spectacular
Once seen, never forgotten. Croatia’s fabulously beautiful coast and islands (1,246 to be precise) – with their rocky coves, iconic beaches, historic towns and gorgeous sunsets, all surrounded by some of the most breathtakingly blue waters imaginable – are places that stay in the mind, and they have a habit of luring you back.
Rovinj in Istria is one of the most instantly recognisable towns on the Croatian coast, its narrow streets and colourful facades climbing upwards to a soaring bell tower, modelled on that of St Mark’s Basilica in Venice. Travel north just a little and you’ll reach Poreč, home to Unesco-listed Byzantine mosaics to rival those in Ravenna or Istanbul – or south to Pula, with its magnificently preserved Roman amphitheatre. For a peaceful oasis set among some of the country’s finest vineyards, head just five miles inland from the sea walls of Novigrad to Brtonigla.
Continue reading...Do you enjoy exploring the cobbled streets of historic towns, or is spending long days stretched out on the beach more your thing? Answer these questions to find out your Croatian holiday persona
Find out more by visiting croatia.hr
Continue reading...Cruising is booming – 2023 ticket sales have surpassed historic levels and 2024 has seen the launch of the largest cruise ship ever built. But as cruise tourism's popularity has increased, so have the pollution problems it brings. To customers, it may not be evident that any problems exist, since some cruise line companies claim to be becoming more climate-friendly. But the truth can be quite different. Josh Toussaint-Strauss interrogates what impact the world's biggest ships are having on the planet
‘Biggest, baddest’ – but is it the cleanest? World’s largest cruise ship sets sail
‘A good cruise is one that doesn’t come’: Europe’s ports bear brunt of ship pollution
Shipping’s dirty secret: how ‘scrubbers’ clean the air – while contaminating the sea
From biking adventures to city breaks, get inspiration for your next break – whether in the UK or further afield – with twice-weekly emails from the Guardian’s travel editors. You’ll also receive handpicked offers from Guardian Holidays.
From biking adventures to city breaks, get inspiration for your next break – whether in the UK or further afield – with twice-weekly emails from the Guardian’s travel editors.
You’ll also receive handpicked offers from Guardian Holidays.
Continue reading...As a new movie starring Zendaya puts the tennis on the big screen, the sport that brought us Lacoste and Fred Perry is inspiring today’s style players
With a new film, Challengers, opening this weekend, American actor Zendaya has been on a lot of premiere red carpets and chatshow sofas in recent weeks. And from shoes with tennis-ball heels to a party dress patterned with rackets, the former teen idol’s outfits have all been a very chic take on tennis, much like the Luca Guadagnino film itself.
While the rest of us may lack the occasion to wear a plunge-fronted floor-length neon dress decorated with a tennis ball, it will be hard to miss “tenniscore” this year as clothes inspired by, or worn for, the sport become the latest trend.
Continue reading...DeBose plays a research scientist caught between increasingly at odds astronauts and cosmonauts in Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s credulity-stretching sci-fi drama
Fast-tracked through the space programme, rising star research scientist Dr Kira Foster (Ariana DeBose) finally makes it to the International Space Station. There, she is welcomed by her new colleagues: two American astronauts and three Russian cosmonauts, united by a common goal to work in service of all humankind regardless of nationality, race or creed. Borders, explains cosmonaut Nika (Masha Mashkova), are invisible from space. But there are hints that the idealism and harmony on the ISS might be fragile when Kira’s lab mice react to zero gravity by chewing each other’s limbs off. It’s not the most subtle of metaphors, particularly for the amputee rodents.
When US-Russian hostilities back on Earth boil over into full warfare (strikingly and unsettlingly evoked in the view from orbit, as the blue-green planet turns an angry, inflamed red), the tensions on board soon ignite. It’s a neat premise, with something of the claustrophobia and high-stakes space peril of Danny Boyle’s Sunshine. But while DeBose is impressive, the contrived plot of Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s movie hinges, somewhat preposterously, on rational, highly trained scientific minds devolving overnight into paranoid, murderous maniacs.
In UK and Irish cinemas now
Continue reading...As Luca Guadagnino’s acclaimed tennis film Challengers makes its case for sporting immortality, critic Guy Lodge chooses 20 of the genre’s undisputed heavyweights
Analogies of life as sport have been exhausted by every PE teacher in existence. In the movies, however, they’re eternally renewable. Take Challengers, Luca Guadagnino’s sleek, sexy, sweat-drenched new film, which hits every metaphor you might expect in its story of three tennis pros locked in a tense love triangle: games are won and lost, points scored, doubles partners swapped, and so on. Shot and paced with the ricocheting energy of a great tennis match, it’s a sports movie that, like many a classic of the genre, understands the parallels between sport and cinema as two great crowd-pleasing pastimes.
The sports movie is pretty much as old as movies themselves: for early silent-cinema pioneers at the turn of the 20th century, the movement and momentum of a baseball game or a boxing match made them as dynamic a subject as any for the camera. Charlie Chaplin’s very first appearance as the Little Tramp, in the short Kid Auto Races at Venice, cast him as a disruptive spectator at a racing-car derby. Classic templates for the genre emerged quickly: the Oscar-winning 1931 hit The Champ nailed a structure for the underdog sporting weepie that shaped everything from Rocky to The Wrestler, while the 1944 Elizabeth Taylor vehicle National Velvet minted a million further feelgood stories of plucky athletes defying the odds. (It’s far harder to involve audiences in stories of an athlete who’s born a winner.)
Continue reading...For years, the political establishment opportunistically railed against sex trafficking. Then came Pizzagate.
The post QAnon Was Born Out of the Sex Ad Moral Panic That Took Down Backpage.com appeared first on The Intercept.
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are the most popular digital assets today, capturing the attention of cryptocurrency investors, whales and people from around the world. People find it amazing that some users spend thousands or millions of dollars on a single NFT-based image of a monkey or other token, but you can simply take a screenshot for free. So here we share some freuently asked question about NFTs.
NFT stands for non-fungible token, which is a cryptographic token on a blockchain with unique identification codes that distinguish it from other tokens. NFTs are unique and not interchangeable, which means no two NFTs are the same. NFTs can be a unique artwork, GIF, Images, videos, Audio album. in-game items, collectibles etc.
A blockchain is a distributed digital ledger that allows for the secure storage of data. By recording any kind of information—such as bank account transactions, the ownership of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), or Decentralized Finance (DeFi) smart contracts—in one place, and distributing it to many different computers, blockchains ensure that data can’t be manipulated without everyone in the system being aware.
The value of an NFT comes from its ability to be traded freely and securely on the blockchain, which is not possible with other current digital ownership solutionsThe NFT points to its location on the blockchain, but doesn’t necessarily contain the digital property. For example, if you replace one bitcoin with another, you will still have the same thing. If you buy a non-fungible item, such as a movie ticket, it is impossible to replace it with any other movie ticket because each ticket is unique to a specific time and place.
One of the unique characteristics of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) is that they can be tokenised to create a digital certificate of ownership that can be bought, sold and traded on the blockchain.
As with crypto-currency, records of who owns what are stored on a ledger that is maintained by thousands of computers around the world. These records can’t be forged because the whole system operates on an open-source network.
NFTs also contain smart contracts—small computer programs that run on the blockchain—that give the artist, for example, a cut of any future sale of the token.
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) aren't cryptocurrencies, but they do use blockchain technology. Many NFTs are based on Ethereum, where the blockchain serves as a ledger for all the transactions related to said NFT and the properties it represents.5) How to make an NFT?
Anyone can create an NFT. All you need is a digital wallet, some ethereum tokens and a connection to an NFT marketplace where you’ll be able to upload and sell your creations
When you purchase a stock in NFT, that purchase is recorded on the blockchain—the bitcoin ledger of transactions—and that entry acts as your proof of ownership.
The value of an NFT varies a lot based on the digital asset up for grabs. People use NFTs to trade and sell digital art, so when creating an NFT, you should consider the popularity of your digital artwork along with historical statistics.
In the year 2021, a digital artist called Pak created an artwork called The Merge. It was sold on the Nifty Gateway NFT market for $91.8 million.
Non-fungible tokens can be used in investment opportunities. One can purchase an NFT and resell it at a profit. Certain NFT marketplaces let sellers of NFTs keep a percentage of the profits from sales of the assets they create.
Many people want to buy NFTs because it lets them support the arts and own something cool from their favorite musicians, brands, and celebrities. NFTs also give artists an opportunity to program in continual royalties if someone buys their work. Galleries see this as a way to reach new buyers interested in art.
There are many places to buy digital assets, like opensea and their policies vary. On top shot, for instance, you sign up for a waitlist that can be thousands of people long. When a digital asset goes on sale, you are occasionally chosen to purchase it.
To mint an NFT token, you must pay some amount of gas fee to process the transaction on the Etherum blockchain, but you can mint your NFT on a different blockchain called Polygon to avoid paying gas fees. This option is available on OpenSea and this simply denotes that your NFT will only be able to trade using Polygon's blockchain and not Etherum's blockchain. Mintable allows you to mint NFTs for free without paying any gas fees.
The answer is no. Non-Fungible Tokens are minted on the blockchain using cryptocurrencies such as Etherum, Solana, Polygon, and so on. Once a Non-Fungible Token is minted, the transaction is recorded on the blockchain and the contract or license is awarded to whoever has that Non-Fungible Token in their wallet.
You can sell your work and creations by attaching a license to it on the blockchain, where its ownership can be transferred. This lets you get exposure without losing full ownership of your work. Some of the most successful projects include Cryptopunks, Bored Ape Yatch Club NFTs, SandBox, World of Women and so on. These NFT projects have gained popularity globally and are owned by celebrities and other successful entrepreneurs. Owning one of these NFTs gives you an automatic ticket to exclusive business meetings and life-changing connections.
That’s a wrap. Hope you guys found this article enlightening. I just answer some question with my limited knowledge about NFTs. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to drop them in the comment section below. Also I have a question for you, Is bitcoin an NFTs? let me know in The comment section below
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