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Why Eton still

runs Britain

The invisible woman... in the Petraeus aff air

Hadley FreemanA Christmas story

Kevin PowersFrom wars to words

Slippers and suitsEveningwear for men

The singles chartsCelebrating 60 years

Networking ★ Privilege ★ Time management

Now church and state are in the hands

of Old Etonians. And there’s at least one more in the wings...

2 The Guardian 14.11.12

Shortcuts

Lord Patten – those 13 jobs in full

2. Member of BP International Advisory Board. 3. Adviser to port-owner Hutchison Europe. 4. Member of the European advisory board of the private equity group Bridgepoint. 5. Member of the electricity company EDF ’s Stakeholder Advisory Panel. 6. Chancellor of the University of Oxford. 7. Member of the International Board of Overseers for

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Employment

The invisible woman in the Petraeus aff air

Politics

B efore this year, an internet search for photos of Judy Smith yielded just one

result. But what a picture . Smith, in white trouser suit and sun-glasses, leading her client Monica Lewinsky through a crowd of cameras , the month before she was due to testify before Ken Starr’s grand jury. The media scrum was ravenous, but lawyers and journalists paid tribute to Smith’s impeccable calm .

Smith has become a leg-end in crisis management, working on everything from the Enron scandal to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, with clients from Kobe Bryant to Wesley Snipes. And her status was confi rmed again yesterday, with reports she is advising Jill Kelley, one of two women involved in the David Petraeus scandal .

The crisis is being described as the most signifi cant Wash-ington sex story since Clinton . Kelley triggered the storm when she complained to an FBI agent that she had received harassing

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�dron. Still, Smith should be able to handle it. Linda Kenney Baden, a private trial attorney who has worked with her extensively, says she is the ultimate crisis man-ager. With degrees in public rela-tions and law (and a black belt in karate), Smith “brings the unique experience of being able to navi-gate in both worlds … she listens, fi rst of all – she doesn’t impose. And she’s not threatening in any way, to anyone, and yet she’s very fi rm. She’s also very discreet.”

This last quality comes up repeatedly in discussion of

Smith – she is hard to reach, with no telephone number on her company website, and directory enquiries confi rming

it is unlisted. But earlier in 2012 her profi le leapt as it emerged she had inspired

Scandal , the fi rst network TV drama with an African-American

female lead in 38 years. This came about when Smith met writer and producer Shonda Rhimes for a 20-minute chat – and the pair spoke for more than two hours. But both have emphasised she did not break any confi dences, and that is the key to understanding Smith, says Kenney Baden: “She doesn’t get out there to get fame for herself.” By nature, she is a force behind the scenes to be reckoned with. Kira Cochrane

Istanbul’s Sabanci University . 8. Advisory board member to St Benedict’s School in London. 9. One of 30 business ambassadors named by Gordon Brown in 2009 and still active in the role for David Cameron.

10. International adviser to the Japan Art Association. 11. Co-chair of the India-UK Roundtable. 12. Co-chair of the Italy-UK

Annual Conference. 13. “Occasional income

from writing and speaking engagements”. Lena Jakat

A s Lord Patten’s role at the helm of the BBC looks shaky, it has come to

light that he is juggling at least 13 other jobs. They are:

1. Non-executive director at global headhunters Russell Reynolds Associates.

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emails . These turned out to be from Paula Broadwell, Petraeus’s biogra-pher . It then emerged Broadwell had been having an aff air with Petraeus, director of the CIA un-til he resigned last Friday. It has also t ranspired that General John Allen, the top US commander in

Afghanistan, is being investi-gated for 20,000-30,000 pages

of emails sent between him and Kelley. And that unnamed FBI agent Kelley initially approached? He is under scrutiny for send-ing her shirtless photos. Some scandals are love triangles. This one could turn into a love decahe-

Judy Smith’s career highlights

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14.11.12 The Guardian 3

Age: 189. The fi rst vasectomy was carried out on a dog in 1823 .Balls! It’s true. And try to treat this with the seriousness it deserves. Vasectomies on men started soon after, but didn’t become widespread until the second world war.Appearance: I’ll leave that to the picture desk, who have to come up with something tasteful to illustrate this.Why are we talking about it? Because new data shows the number of NHS vasectomies has more than halved over the past decade .That must be down to the cuts. Look, this an extremely sensitive and important subject. The drop in the number of vasectomies is being blamed for a 10% increase in abortion rates among women over the age of 30. You take this fl ippant view because you are a MAN, and a pretty selfi sh, uncaring, wantonly sperm-spraying man at that.Steady on. Why don’t we calm down and go back to basics. What is a vasectomy? According to the NHS , it is “a minor operation during which the tubes that carry sperm from a man’s testicles to the penis are cut, blocked or sealed with heat”.Bloody hell. I think I need a drink. Oh don’t be so ridiculous. It’s nowhere near as bad as you’re making out. When you have a vasectomy, you get a local anaesthetic, go home the same day, and the bruises on your balls will disappear within a week .Bruises on my balls!? It won’t just be your balls that are bruised if you don’t start seeing this from the woman’s point of view. As Ann Furedi, chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service says: “Vasectomy is a safe and reliable method that gives men the opportunity to play an active role in contraception. It is disappointing that the only long-term method which enables men to play this part is declining.”OK, OK. So why are NHS vasectomies falling? Men want to keep their options open. Even once they’ve had fi ve children with Belinda, they think they might want to start all over again with thirtysomething Melissa. Typical!Man-hater! Misogynist!Not to be confused with: Having your tonsils out.Do say: “How much does it cost to go private?”Don’t say: “It’s a snip!”

Cringing at the BBC’s coverage

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cry; Radio 4 PM’s Tim Davie’s

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if it can show that it would have agreed on the terms between the parent company and UK company even if they were not connected.

Do other businesses charge a premium? Yes. McDonald’s and Burger King charge premiums of up to 5% of

turnover, while Wal-Mart charges its UK subsidiary, Asda, 0.6% for services including royalties.

However, all three make a profi t in the UK and pay

subsequent taxes.

Any other reasons for Starbucks’s low tax bill? Yes. The company spends $500m (£315m) annually on tax-deductible areas including research and development. The company also claims the rental rates on its stores in the UK are some of the highest in the world, especially in central London where some stores have already

been closed because of the cost. The Europe, Middle East and Asia division,

which oversees the UK operation,

also loans cash for investment, which it then charges interest

on. This can be written off against tax.

Simon Neville

Starbucks: your tax questions answered

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UK 14 years ago. But with nearly 800 stores across the country, it is still making a loss. How come? Here, your burning Starbucks/tax questions are answered …

How much tax has Starbucks paid in the UK? A total of £8.5m in corporation tax since 1998 .

Why so little? With more than 750 coff ee shops in the UK, any profi t is wiped out through a number of payments that Starbucks must make to subsidiaries abroad.

Such as? A 4.7% premium is paid to the Dutch division of Starbucks – the re-gional headquarters – for rights images and the cof-fee recipes. The premium, which used to be 6% before Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC) asked for it to be lowered, also includes the cost of the roast-ing process that takes place there.

Where do es it buy the coff ee beans? From the company’s Swiss operation at up to a 20% premium.

Why does the UK operation pay a premium? The stores are not franchises, however HMRC allows companies to pay intellectual property fees to overseas parent compa-nies if they are made at

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A Christmas story: many years ago, when my age was still in the sin-gle digits, I was watching TV at a friend’s house. A Christmas-themed advert came on for a toy that was

typical of the off erings foisted upon children in 1980s New York – Barbie’s plastic surgeon’s offi ce, maybe, or a Cabbage Patch Doll nuclear power station, or perhaps a Monopoly set that came with fake piles of cocaine. My friend turned to me proudly: “I’ve already put that on my Christmas list.” For what would not be the fi rst time in my childhood, I mused that, some-times, being Jewish sucks.

I am happy to say I no longer feel that way (l’chaim!), partly because I am now old enough to buy my own Cabbage Patch Doll nuclear power station (take that, Santa), mainly because I am no longer forced to attend Hebrew school. But there is another reason: just as a Christmas advert awakened me to the benefi ts of life as an unchosen person, Christmas adverts today make me think that perhaps, really, I dodged a goyish bullet.

Like John Lithgow in 3rd Rock from the Sun, desperately studying the people of Ohio in order to understand the human race, I have spent some time watching this year’s festive adverts to get to grips with Christmas and, I’m not going to lie, I’m a little confused. The fi rst thing I’m confused about is when Christmas adverts became a big deal in this country. I do not remember this from, say, just fi ve years ago, but now the John Lewis Christmas advert has become Britain’s equivalent of the ad-verts shown during the Super Bowl: awaited, unveiled with the fuss of the turkey on Christ-mas day and then parsed for some kind of cultural meaning. We can draw all kinds of pat conclusions about what this says about the cultural diff erences between Britain and America that one gets excited about a depart-ment store’s festive advert and the other is fascinated by parodically expensive adverts shown during breaks in a contact sport that is now proven to cause head injuries. But I prefer to note the diff erences between the countries’ Christmas adverts, with America ’s focus ing on general consump-tion, Britain’s opting for sentimentality and anachronistic depictions of family life. Merry Christmas, everybody!

Let’s start with the alleged big festive gun, John Lewis , and it s annual muzaking of a much-beloved 80s song. This advert is so soppy eyed it makes the Werther’s Originals advert look like a gritty Ken Loach fi lm. It has been described as “classy” because it doesn’t actually show the name John Lewis. Personally,

Hadley Freeman

I wouldn’t have noticed if it did, as I was too dis-tracted wondering why a snowman would even need gloves, seeing as they are made of snow. Do snowmen make themselves cold? I think deep thoughts, you know.

Like its product, Coca-Cola’s Christmas adverts remain teeth-rottingly consistent, still taking place in a strange world where cheery-cheeked strangers are united in festive joy by the sight of a bunch of trucks barrelling through their village, bringing brown sugar water to the masses. It’s why Jesus was born, people!

But let’s get to the women – because that’s what Christmas is really about, right? Those long-suff ering, present-hungry womenfolk. The very.co.uk adverts are, unless you are a devoted fan of Holly Willoughby and Fearne Cotton, not really a joy to watch at the best of times. Their image of Christmas this year is of Holly and Fearne bullying poor old Santa like something out of Mean Girls while wearing nasty red dresses. Dear Santa, can I have a sex change this year?

If this vision of festive femininity sounds depressing, ladies, then the Morrisons and Asda adverts will require you to put Prozac on your Christmas list. Both of these adverts labour under an attitude to the genders that will be familiar to the screen writers of The Hangover or any BBC3 sitcom. This attitude is as following: men are idiots who can’t do anything, women are packhorses who have to do everything, the end. “Behind every Christmas, there’s Mum,” intones the patronising voiceover in Asda’s advert. And behind every Asda advert, there’s an account director who phones in his ideas from the 1950s. I was briefl y excited during the Morrisons advert when the music became distinctly similar to Danny Elfman’s soundtrack to Edward Scissorhands . Ooh, is Edward this year’s Morrisons’ celebrity? And would he slice everyone in the advert to ribbons with his scissorhands? GOOD. Sadly, as I’ve often been in regards to Christmas promises, I was disappointed.

Why are Christmas adverts so miserable and lazy? Of course, Christmas adverts have as much to do with Christmas as reality TV has to do with reality. But British ones, I suspect, unwittingly catch the true spirit of Christmas better than American ones do in that they are an annual event that is long anticipated, full of cliches and adored by some and

dreaded by many. But if Christmas itself still makes me a little sorry that I don’t get to

join in the holiday properly, Christmas adverts make me very, very happy

that I’m Jewish. Praise heavens there aren’t any Chanukah adverts.

Thank you, Santa!

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The new archbishop of Canterbury is the latest Old Etonian to make it to the top of the establishment. But what is it about the school that makes it such a breeding ground for leadership? Andy Beckett pays a visit

The cup of opportunity

Boys sit watching the traditional Eton Wall Game being playedPhotograph Christopher Furlong/Getty Images


In the Porter’s Lodge at Eton, a surprisingly small, panelled room that guards the main entrance to probably the world’s most famous and self-conscious

school, a recent issue of the Week magazine lies on a table between two chairs for visitors. On the cover is a cartoon of David Cameron, the 19th Old Etonian to be British prime minister, and a photo of the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, who may become the 20th. The magazine is well-thumbed: outsiders remain as fascinated by Eton’s infl uence as the school is.

On the offi cial Eton website, an elegant sales brochure with pictures of sunlit old school walls and pupils in their ancient, photogenic uniforms, there is an extensive section on “famous Old Etonians” . The list of most recent “OEs” is startling, even to anyone well aware that elite Britain can be narrow. There are smooth media grandees (Geordie Greig, Nicholas Coleridge) and prickly dissenters (the New Left Review veteran Perry Anderson); lifestyle-sellers both macho (Bear Grylls) and gentle (Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall); environmental-ists (Jonathon Porritt) and climate change sceptics (Matt Ridley); actors (Hugh Laurie, Dominic West, Damian Lewis) and princes (Harry and William); rising Tory MPs (Rory Stewart, Kwasi Kwarteng) and people who are likely to interview them (BBC deputy political editor James Landale). Reading the long, hypnotic index of Eton eminences, back to the college’s foundation in the 15th century, British public life begins to seem little more than Eton – a school of 1,300 13- to 18-year-old boys – talking to it-self. And the list is not even compre-hensive: at the time of writing, no one has thought to include Justin Welby , the new Archbishop of Canterbury.

But the power of an institution can be more than its people. Under the coalition, the patchy egalitarianism of postwar state schooling is giving way to a more traditional philosophy: stricter uniforms and rules, pupils organised into private school-style “houses”, more powerful headteachers, more competi-tion and diff erence between schools. It is a philosophy increasingly friendly to Eton. The current headmaster, Tony Little , remembers his fi rst headship at another private school in the late 80s: “The local comprehensive wouldn’t invite me over the threshold. That has changed massively. The number of phone calls I get from heads of academies has greatly risen in the last two, three years. They want to visit, they want to collaborate.” Eton now has state “partner schools” in nearby Slough, and this year joined with seven other private schools to open a free school in Stratford in east London.

Other trends are working in Eton’s favour. With annual fees of £32,067 – more than the average after-tax British household income – Eton is, more than ever, “a luxury brand”, as →


Greig puts it in fellow Old Etonian Nick Fraser’s 2006 book The

Importance of Being Eton . As the super-rich and the wish to imitate them have strengthened, Greig continues, “luxury brands have come back”. Like Britain’s many other luxury businesses, Eton has improved its product. “When I was there in 1958 to 1963, the bottom 40% of boys did absolutely no work,” says Simon Head, fellow of the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford University. “That’s gone. Eton has hunkered down. It’s mobilised itself for the global economy.”

Even the uniform seems more in keeping with the times. In an era of Downton Abbey and dandyish, aristocratic menswear fashions, Eton’s waistcoats, tailcoats and stripes look less anachronistic. In the windows of the elderly school outfi tters along Eton High Street, the long, theatrical approach to the college through the pretty, pros-perous Berkshire town of the same name, there are items you could imagine selling well to east London hipsters.

Last month, a mildly droll Etonian reworking of the international pop hit Gangnam Style by PSY, called Eton Style , was posted by pupils on YouTube. Filmed around the school, it has had more than 2.6m views. Eton is adept at mocking and adverti sing itself simultaneously.

And yet, aspects of the school’s success and longevity remain mysteri-ous. What exactly is the source of its pupils’ legendary charm and confi dence, their almost as legendary slipperiness? In his book, Fraser interviews the late Anthony Sampson, the famous investi-gator of Britain’s elites. “I’d meet Etonians everywhere I went,” says Sampson, not one himself. “I’ve never

existence, just small, hand-painted signs, white lettering on black, indicating that an increasing number of the courtyards, alleyways and driveways branching off the High Street are private property. From the open windows of neat classrooms, some late medieval, some Victorian, some Edwardian, some with expensive glass-and-steel modern additions, little of the usual hubbub of secondary school life emerges. Pupils and teachers alike sit upright in the black-and-white uniform, which is somehow both uptight and fl amboyant – some might say like Etonians them-selves. The uniform was standardised in the 19th century and must be worn for all lessons, AKA “divs” or “schools” in Eton’s elaborate private language.

When the lesson ends, the spotless pavements are suddenly fl ooded with pupils. Some are tall and languid, some are chubby and scurrying, some are black or Asian, most are white. Everyone carries old-fashioned ring-binder fi les, and no one texts or makes a phone call. But some of the boys greet each other with hugs, or bursts of transatlantic up-talking, or say “like” with a long “i”, London-style – for a minute or two, many seem reasonably modern and normal. Then everyone rushes off to the next lesson. “It is possible to be bored at Eton,” says the school website, “but it takes a bit of eff ort!”

Some boys are so well-connected when they fi rst arrive at the school, they already have a certain swagger. In focusing on a single institution, Eton’s critics are sometimes avoiding the more uncomfortable truth that the roots of Britain’s elites go wider and deeper. But for less overwhelmingly privileged boys, says one ex-pupil, Eton can be life-changing: “It’s just expected that you will drink from the cup of opportu-nity. So you become used to being able to do whatever you put your hand to. Or at the least, you learn not to seem fazed by opportunities in the wider world.”

Little himself was a pupil from 1967 to 1972, “the fi rst male in my family to be educated past the age of 14”. His study is baronial and high-ceilinged, with a window austerely open to the cold evening, but he is less forbidding than you might expect, with a quiet, calm, middle-class voice, like a senior doctor. “Dad worked at Heathrow, security for British Airways,” he says. One of the school’s main aims, he continues, is to admit a broader mix. But how can it, given the fees, which have raced ahead of earnings and infl ation ? “It’s a huge amount of money,” he admits – the appearance of candour is one of Little’s tactics when he talks to the outside world. “Sometimes I think, short of robbing a bank, what d’you do?”

understood why they were so good at networking and politics.” Fraser specu-lates: “The Etonian mystique often seems a matter of mirrors, a collusion between those [non-Etonians] hungry for [Eton] notoriety and Etonians who are only too happy to supply it.” One afternoon last week, I emailed the school to ask if I could visit. Within less than two hours, Little emailed back and off ered to meet the next day.

Like many British centres of power, Eton owes some of its infl uence to geography. It was founded in 1440 on the orders of Henry VI, frequently in residence with his court nearby at Windsor Castle. Nowadays, the school emphasi ses its closeness to London, the great global money hub, a dozen miles to the east. “About a third of our boys have London addresses,” says Little, leaving open the possibility that they also have others. For the tenth who live abroad – the proportion “has grown a little” since he became head in 2002 – Heathrow airport is even closer. Jets intermittently moan loud and low over the school’s spikes and towers.

But otherwise, for much of the long school day, there is an uncanny hush. As you approach the college, there is no grand announcement of Eton’s

‘You become used to being able to do whatever you turn your hand to,’ says one former pupil

Clockwise from top right: Old

Etonians Hugh Fearnley-

Whittingstall and Damian Lewis;

headmaster Tony Little; pupils on

their way to lessons

←


Currently, by giving out scholarships on academic and musical merit, and bursaries according to “fi nancial need”, Eton subsidises the fees of about 20% of its pupils. “Forty-fi ve boys pay nothing at all,” says Little. “Our stated aim is 25% on reduced fees, of whom 70 pay nothing.” What is the timescale? “Quite deliberately non-specifi c. But I’ll be disappointed if we have not achieved it in 10 years.” Not exactly a social revolution. “A long-term goal” is for Eton to become “needs-blind”: to admit any boy, regardless of ability to pay, who makes it through the school’s selection procedure of an interview, a “reasoning test”, and the standard private-school Common Entrance exam. Whether Eton would then become a genuinely inclusive place is open to doubt: one of its selection criteria is an applicant’s suitability for boarding, and many people connected with Eton would surely resist its meta-morphosis into a meritocracy. Hierarchy is in Eton’s bones.

Either way, Little says, the school does not have nearly enough money to become “needs-blind” yet. According to its latest accounts, Eton has an investment portfolio worth £200m. The school looks enviously on the wealth of private American universities: Harvard, the richest, has an endowment of more than £20bn. Eton seems unlikely to return soon to its core purpose as decreed by Henry VI: the education of poor scholars.

In fact, the school’s history has been more erratic than many of its admirers and detractors imagine. Henry VI was deposed when Eton was only 21 years old and its funding was cut off : the college was left with a stunted-looking chapel, built to less than half the intended length. Eton is hardly the oldest British private school – one of its main rivals, Westminster, was founded in 1179. According to Fraser, “Eton-mania”, like so many supposedly eternal British traditions, only started in the reign of Queen Victoria. From the 1860s to the early 1960s, the school enjoyed a golden age of power and prestige. Then its infl uence plummeted. The Etonian-packed, slightly drifting Tory administrations of Harold Macmillan and Alec Douglas-Home were blamed for Britain’s apparent decline. Within the school itself, as Harold Wilson’s 60s Labour government – there has never been an Etonian Labour prime minister – seemed poised to create a fairer Britain, a friend of Fraser’s “wasn’t alone in his belief that Eton was doomed, and should be forthwith incorporated within the state system … The Provost and Fellows [the school’s governing body] did consider relocating to

Ireland or France, but this was never a very serious notion.”

A perceived lack of seriousness hampered Eton for decades afterwards. Reforming headmasters struggled against the school establishment, nostalgic Old Etonians, and sometimes the pupils themselves to make Eton more academic and less obsessed by rules and rituals. Margaret Thatcher still had OEs in her 80s cabinets, but she marginalised and often fi red them: they seemed too passive and paternalistic for modern Britain.

How diff erent Etonians seem now. Little says the school teaches pupils “how to juggle time, how to work hard”, and how

to present themselves in public: “One thing I say to them when they leave is, if you choose to behave the way a tabloid would expect … you deserve everything you get.” He downplays Eton slang as “a quirk and an oddity. A lot of words have fallen out of use.”

I wonder if he would say quite the same to a Daily Telegraph journalist. The classic Etonian skills – Cameron has them – have long included adjusting your message to your audience, defusing the issue of privilege with self-deprecation, and bending to the prevailing social and political winds, but only so far. “Do institutions in England change totally while seeming not to, or do they do the opposite?” asks Fraser. “I think the latter. And Eton has changed far less than Oxbridge.”

Rushing between lessons with their old-fashioned fi les, some boys talk earnestly about their essays and marks. But Eton has not quite become an elite academic school: it is usually high, but rarely top, of the exam league tables. “Eton’s view of education encompasses

much more than just intellectual achievement,” says the school’s annual report. Nor does Eton participate unreservedly in the global education marketplace: it restricts its number of foreign pupils. “We are a British school that is cosmopolitan,” says Little. “We’re not an international school.”

Does he think a school can ever be too powerful? For once, his aff ability gives way to something fi ercer: “I’m unashamed that we’re aiming for excellence. We want … people who get on with things. The fact that people who come from here will stand in public life – for me, that is a cause for celebration.” If Eton is too infl uential, he suggests, other schools should try harder. Fraser has another explanation for the success of Old Etonians: “At moments in their lives,” he writes, “they are mysteriously available for each other.” Subtle networking, a sense of mission, an elite that does not think too hard about its material advantages – Eton’s is a very British formula for dominance.

It can be a high-pressure place. For all the Old Etonians who have considered the rest of life an anti-climax, there have been others damaged by the school: by its relentless timetable, by its crueller rituals, such as the “rips” torn by teachers in bad schoolwork, and by Eton’s strange combination of worldliness and otherworldliness. Compared to most other boarding schools , Eton seems more eccentric and intense, its mental legacy more lingering. “Eton never left me,” writes Fraser. Little says: “I’ve come across a fair number of casualties who were here [with me] in the 60s.” Another more recent ex-pupil describes Eton as “a millstone round my neck every day”.

After my interview with Little, I had a parting look inside the grand, domed School Hall. The building was empty except for a single boy, onstage in his stiff uniform at a grand piano, and a watching teacher with a clipboard. Dusk had fallen, and his playing rippled gorgeously through the overheated building. When he fi nished, the teacher immediately came and stood over him. I couldn’t catch what she said, but he touched his face nervously and nodded.

For some people, that is what education should be about. And Eton nowadays works restlessly to satisfy them. Beside its seemingly endless playing fi elds, the school is building a new quadrangle for 40 more classrooms. Next to the development is a small, bucolic, council-owned park, with litter and rusty goalposts. As Eton fl ourishes for the next few years at least, the rest of Britain may have to make do. P

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The title of Kevin Powers’ debut novel comes from a marching song he learned on manoeuvres with the US army. “A yellow bird/

With a yellow bill,” it goes, “was perched upon/my windowsill./I lured him in/With a piece of bread/And then I smashed/His fucking head …” The lines, which looped round and through his 2004 tour of Iraq, snagged unshake-ably in his mind; as he was writing the novel, the bird – suckered in then set upon – came to stand for “the lack of control soldiers have over what happens to them. The war proceeds, no matter what you think or do; it’s an entity unto itself. You’re powerless, and powerlessness itself becomes the enemy. That was my emotional experi-ence of the war. The idea of the bird resonated with the core of what I was trying to get at.”

The Yellow Birds – shortlisted last week for the Guardian fi rst book award – land ed in bookshops in September off the back of a wave of hype that began to build with the reports of Powers’ lucrative deal with US publisher Little, Brown and crested with reviews com-paring its author to – among others – Tim O’Brien , Norman Mailer and Ernest Hemingway. It tells the story of Private John Bartle, who grows up in smalltown Virginia, signs up to get out, and is shipped off to Iraq’s Nineveh province to play his part in the US’s 21st-century war theatre. Attempting to impose meaning on the confl ict’s

‘What I needed was to write’

senseless sprawl, Bartle fastens on a promise inadvertently given to the mother of his friend Murph – younger, softer, less robust – that he would “bring him home”. It’s a promise he can’t keep.

The novel unfolds along two inter-cutting timelines: a superstitiously hopeful before, when Bartle and Murph hold their own against horror by deploying a kind of magical thinking in which “if we remained ordinary, we would not die”, and a bleak and blasted after, in which Bartle, back in Virginia, must come to terms both with the guilt of losing Murph and the way his death reduced all their carefully cultivated shibboleths to so much dust.

As war novels go, The Yellow Birds is a triumph, mining the confl ict in Iraq to investigate universal questions of the extent to which we are in control of our lives; the degree to which we are capable of exercising free will. As debuts go it’s better yet, with an opening as arresting and beautiful as any I have recently encountered. And there’s no question that Powers – 31, army veteran, fresh off the Master’s programme – is himself a compelling proposition: if it’s a truism that most fi rst novels are autobiographical, it is also true that some resumés are more equal than others, and reviewers have been quick to ferret out the points at which Powers and his narrator overlap.

When we meet on the UK leg of his publicity tour, Powers – in person thoughtful, diffi dent, intriguingly

US soldiers under fi re in Baghdad in 2008

An Iraq war veteran, Kevin Powers had more material for his debut novel than most 31-year-olds. Sarah Crown talks to him about the frontline between fact and fi ction in his The Yellow Birds

tattooed – is happy to acknowledge their shared “biographical and geo-graphical details”, although he “didn’t lose a friend the way Bartle did”. But he’s keener by far to talk about the places where their inner lives inter-sect. “The core of what Bartle goes through,” he says, “I empathised with it. I felt those things, and asked the same questions: is there anything about this that’s redeeming; does asking in itself have value? The story is invented, but there’s a defi nite alignment between his emotional and mental life and mine.”

Powers was just 17 when he enlisted. “I wasn’t a good student in high school,” he explains. “I wanted to go to college but they weren’t exactly beat-ing down my door to off er me admis-sion, and it’s so expensive in the US. If you join up for a period, the army

‘I had to come to terms with my own experience before I could contend with it in writing’


I needed to do was really try to write. The process took three or more years; I had help from some professors who encouraged me to look into graduate school, and I managed to get a place at the University of Texas.”

Most of the book was written there, several years on from the events that fi red it. “I think I had to come to terms with my own experience before I was able to contend with it in writing,” Powers says. The Yellow Birds is his answer to the wider question, put to him repeatedly on return to civilian life, of “what it was like over there”. He set out, he says, with the aim of “seeing if it would be possible to paint a portrait of the war looking out from inside of this one soldier”; the focus of the book, as a result, is tight and personal, veering back and forth between soaring, saturated descrip-tions of light and dust, minarets and hyacinths, and the all-out screaming horror of the war. He switches, sometimes mid-sentence, until the country’s two aspects become com-pounded for the reader as they are for Bartle, blending and overlaying each other in a woozy mix that leaves you sick and giddy and gasping for air.

What’s more, unusually for a novel about the war, almost half of it is set away from the battlefi eld, in a prosaic Richmond of school buses and muddy river banks that Bartle, battle-dazed, sees as if through a pane of glass. “There have been stories recently that the number of veteran suicides has now surpassed the battlefi eld casualties,” Powers says. “I wanted to show the whole picture. It’s not just: you get off the plane, you’re back home, everything’s fi ne. Maybe the physical danger ends, but soldiers are still deeply at risk of being injured in a diff erent way. I thought it was important to acknowledge that.”

Was there any sense of exorcism in the writing? “Certainly there were moments of satisfaction where I felt like: ‘Ah, that’s what that is; that’s what I’ve been feeling: the words I’ve put in Bartle’s mouth, that I hadn’t been able to articulate before.’” Did the war, then, make him a writer, or simply give him something to write about? “I’d always written, though I didn’t think of it as anything other than a secret hobby. But I suppose what the war did was free me from the fear of failure. It gave me licence to give it a go.”

The Yellow Birds is published

by Sceptre, rrp £14.99.

To order a copy for

£11.99 with free UK p&p

call 0330 333 6846 or visit

guardianbookshop.co.uk

Well it is so brilliant that writing is having a moment? I mean saleswise, I went to Dave you should totally give a knighthood to Philip Hensher, as in serious stationery fabulousness, God I wish I’d known how hot writing is when I priced the thank -you notelets, £40 for 10 is a steal. Plus I need to write a letter? Because Sarah Govey has this bff called Mariella who is say-ing how I am a disappointing fi rst lady and Dave is risible unlike Sarah Brown who does amazing things, and Sarah says I defi nitely have to listen because Mariella is like this genius with around three million followers? So Sarah will show me how to channel Mrs Brown? I’m like whatevs, how hard can being a Mariella role-model be, just promise me I will not have to start a war, unless that was Cherie?

Well Sarah goes defi nitely the fi rst thing you have to do to stop being disappointing is to grow radishes? I’m like, seriously, how is that not lolz, sorry risible, when everyone will KNOW it was actually the gardener, she is like, trust me, radishes can be inspirational and so is going to fashion shows with Naomi Campbell? I’m like, megasoz, but now Oik is off Russians I am not sure we have any friends in common with the Vladislav Doron-ins? So Sarah is like, fi ne, just pick any top model so long as she knows Charles Taylor and has a billionaire boyfriend from the Soviet region & anger- management issues, we will ask Anna Wintour for some hints.

And the next amazing thing is slumber parties for intellectual bff s

which is scary but not impossible except apparently Mrs Brown’s guests of honour were, like Wendi Deng & Rebekah, they share her love of composting? I’m like, no off ence, is there a single Mrs Brown thing that is not off -limits to a normal person, and Sarah goes well there is still one amazing thing you could try?

So now I am writing my let-ter, actually I think a notelet is perfect because all I am putting is Dear Mariella, People say I am disappointing but unfort I can’t aff ord to give up work and tweet all day? Please help! S Cameron. As seen by Catherine Bennett

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will pay your school and provide a stipend.” There were other reasons too – a family tradition of military service (Powers’ father and grandfathers both served, and his uncle was a marine), as well as the purely geographical imperative of growing up in the American south, from which the bulk of the US army is drawn. “And then there was just being 17: the attraction of adventure: doing something diff er-ent. I hadn’t spent much time outside of a very small area of Virginia before.”

He served from February 2004 to March 2005. On his return, honourably discharged, he drifted: working for a spell at a credit card company (“less than satisfying”), spending a summer framing houses with his carpenter brother, taking some college courses at night. “I did a bunch of things. But at a certain point I made a decision: what

On the web

Authors shortlisted for the Guardian fi rst book award introduce their work guardian.co.uk/books

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Style

who wants to look up to date”.The Acne moodboard for this project

featured a white T-shirt worn with a cummerbund, a sign that the brand was keen to break out of traditional eveningwear codes. The fi nal range does indeed feature the signature Acne white T-shirt, made evening-like with a silk grosgrain trim, the kind of detail usually seen on a tux.

Plush velvet jackets in dark blue or rich burgundy and silk jacquard dress trousers also feature in this range, which Johansson says were designed to work separately with denim.

It’s a collaboration that not only feels right for now but perfectly illustrates two of the biggest trends rippling through men’s eveningwear: a general loosening-up of evening-dress traditions alongside a seriously unquenchable thirst for velvet. Basi-cally, you will be no one at the party this autumn without some kind of loosely styled velvet jacket aff air.

Adrian Clark, style director at Shortlist, says that fashion design-ers are deviating from black-tie traditions. “Designers are taking the

foundations of the traditional tux – white shirt and bow tie – and decon-

The arrival of a new Bond fi lm always brings the idea of tuxedo dressing to the forefront of fashion. Skyfall conveniently hit multi-

plexes just ahead of this year’s party season. Alongside 007, there is also inspiration to be had from a new gen-eration of younger actors unafraid of experimenting on the red carpet with bolder looks while the high street is bursting with velvet and ritzy jacquard.

“A slipper is always interesting,” says Jonny Johansson of Acne on the matter of what shoe a man might consider wearing with a tuxedo. It’s a suitably fl amboyant answer from a man whose cult label has just created a fancy capsule collection of clothes designed for evening for Mr Porter .

Acne, famed for its simple, laidback Swedish coolness, all faded jeans and scoop-neck T-shirts, might seem like an unusual choice to create the swish evening clothes for an upscale online menswear boutique . Toby Bateman, buying director at Mr Porter, disagrees . It was exactly this contemporary aes-thetic, he says, that made the label the perfect partner to create a modern “off -piste tuxedo package for someone

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ANDREW GARFIELDELD

ROBERT PATTINSON

Men’s eveningwear is breaking with tradition and loosening up. But if you don’t do velvet, statement jackets or coloured suits, there will always be Bond. By Simon Chilvers

Ben Whishaw (right)

keeps it classic; while

Alexander McQueen (far

right) goes experimental


structing them or experimenting with more exciting fabrics,” he explains.

Bateman agrees, pointing to catwalk shows such as Maison Martin Margiela, which for autumn showed a tux with a pair of drawstring trousers and a plain black T-shirt. “It is now acceptable to take a velvet tux jacket, for example, and put it with a white shirt and black jeans for a black-tie event,” he says.

So yes, the jacket-with-jeans look really is back in play. Gareth Scourfi eld, fashion editor of Esquire, also points to velvet this season. “ Burberry did a great selection in lovely autumnal colours, such as berry red and emerald green. You can wear these with jeans but I’d keep the shoes black at all times for evening,” he warns.

If you don’t have a Burberry budget, thankfully the high street is also back-ing the velvet trend. M&S has seen strong sales and is doubling its range this season, to include coloured styles in teal, purple and red, says Tony O’Connor, head of design.

Gordon Richardson, creative direc-tor of Topman, confi rms that the label’s key evening look revolves around “deluxe jacquard velvet suiting in intri-cate foil-like patterns that give added

lustre and come in rich saturated teal and berry”. The high-street trend-setter ha s also done an embroidered velvet loafer – though it’s advisable not to get too matchy-matchy about velvet unless your festive sartorial wish is to look like a pair of posh hotel curtains.

For Clark, alarm bells are ringing about the non-velvet statement jack-ets that are popping up at labels such as Alexander McQueen and Dries van Noten . “It needs to be played down, you want to sail closer towards Hugh Hef ner than Graham Norton,” he says. “McQueen has mastered the art of the embellished evening jacket, but always plays down the look with a slim dark tuxedo trouser.”

If your idea of making a party state-ment is putting on a ritzy shirt, then you’d better think again. “I’ve got a big problem with the party shirt,” sighs Scourfi eld. “It’s the equivalent of the Friday-night ‘pulling’ shirt, probably covered in fl owers or horrible stripes and worn with an ill-fi tting jacket and horrible jeans. Men really need to think beyond just the shirt and consider the whole outfi t,” he says.

However, Chris Hobbs, fashion writer at Attitude, is a fan of a splashy

accessory or an aff ordable print shirt. “Accessories are an inexpensive way of jollying a look up, which means a classic tuxedo can be updated easily with a new bow tie or a patterned high-street shirt,” he says. But his real tip? “This season, I am taking my hints from Burberry’s spring 2013 collection and adding touches of metallic.”

Statement jackets, coloured suits and patterned shirts are fashions that cause eye-rolling in certain male quarters but over the past 12 months these looks have trodden the catwalk and the red carpet. Such trends are part of this loosening up of formal dressing, an idea that seems popular with actors including Andrew Garfi eld and Robert Pattinson . These dudes are experimenting. Garfi eld has worn a red Balenciaga tux to a premiere, while Pattinson recently chose a patterned Kenzo shirt to fi nish off his suit . Take some of their looks as your starting point this Christmas.

And if all else fails, there is always Bond . “Daniel Craig is everywhere at the moment and if he can’t make an impression on how good a guy can look in an evening suit, then I don’t know who can,” says Scourfi eld.

ACNE FOR MR PORTER

JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT

MAISON MARTIN MARGIELA

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‘You want to sailcloser to HughHefner thanGrahamNorton’

On the web How to get the hottest men’s eveningwear looks on the high streetguardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle


For Britain, the modern pop era began in 1952. Not only were the fi rst 7in singles released that year, but the fi rst ever copy of the New

Musical Express was published. And on 14 November 1952, exactly 60 years ago today, NME ran the fi rst singles chart. All three creations would become cornerstones of the pop world until their simultaneous decline in the 1990s, as the digital era got into its stride.

But the singles chart – or the “hit parade” as it was called in the 50s, borrowing US terminology – has had a special appeal for the British sensibility. It has meant competition, excitement in league table form, pop music as a sport. It has pitted Frankie Laine against Guy Mitchell, Blur against Oasis , Brits against Yanks, Decca against EMI; it has been fuel for a nation obsessed with train numbers and cricket statistics. The charts dictated what you heard on the radio, what you saw on TV, how high your heroes’ stock had risen. For more than four decades, they were a national fi xture in Britain, like the FA Cup and Christmas.

Looking back at the very fi rst chart is an insight into a lost world; the early 50s are truly the dark age of pop, invisible and obscure. Al Martino’s Here in My Heart is often mentioned as being

Britain’s fi rst No 1, but I don’t ever remember hearing it played on the radio in its entirety. Elsewhere on that fi rst chart are a mix of genres (country, ballads, instrumentals, fi lm themes, exotic novelties, poster-boy pop) that have recurred in the following six decades. For today’s One Direction, there’s Johnnie Ray; for Gangnam Style see Sugarbush by Doris Day and Frankie Laine.

All of them were available on shellac 78s; only Mario Lanza’s Because You’re Mine was available as a 7in 45rpm (EMI had issued it as one of their fi rst records in the new format a few weeks earlier) . It’s also notable how dominated by the US the charts were , with only Vera Lynn, Max Bygraves and band leader Ray Anthony from Britain. Given the standard Anglo-American rock era narrative, it’s easy to forget what a musical backwater Britain was before rock’n’roll.

A fair percentage of people in Britain will know what was No 1 the day they were born. I gave up asking friends from other countries a while ago, as they never knew the answer: Britain’s obsession with the charts has never been echoed abroad. In the 60s and 70s, the French had to rely on a monthly chart in teen magazine Salut les Copains , which excluded anything that wasn’t French.

And at No 7 – it’s Vera Lynn!

Arts

Sixty years ago today, the fi rst singles chart was published in Britain – turning pop music into a competitive sport. Bob Stanley on how fans, scams and yodelling Aussies changed the landscape

Britain’s fi rst No 1 …

Al Martino; a 1960s

compilation album (left)

Showaddywaddy (below)

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In fact, in most of Europe, the British charts had more credibility than the local ones, hence the number of European album sleeves emblazoned with a garish union fl ag sticker proclaiming: “Top hit in England!”

America only ever printed their Hot 100 chart in Billboard, a trade magazine too dry to appeal to even the swottiest pop fan. There was also no national pop chart TV show in the US, or possibly anywhere outside Britain, making Top of the Pops’ place in history almost unique. The only other examples of a national chart show have also tended to be British: the short-lived Disc a Dawn in Wales, and ITV’s long-running The Chart Show.

So it’s part of our heritage, and a badge of honour for the likes of Martino, Gerry & the Pacemakers (fi rst act to score No 1s with their fi rst three singles) and Girls Aloud (fi rst girl group to score 19 top 10 hits) to have a place in UK chart history. Yet there is little doubt that the singles chart – like the FA Cup – has lost some of its prestig e in recent years. When did this process begin?

Though it was compounded by the loss of Top of the Pops, I would suggest the chart’s signifi cance started to shrink around 1994, when singles began to debut at their peak position and fall off the chart completely just three or four weeks later. Between 1952 and the mid-1990s, pop fans and DJs had kept a keen eye on highest new entries, biggest climbers and bizarre drops . Entering the chart at No 1 was an extraordinarily rare feat, the province of superstars like Elvis , the Beatles, Slade, the Jam and Adam & the Ants. By the late 90s, it was the norm, whether you were the Spice Girls or Wamdue Project . When the UK’s No 1 single became more a triumph of marketing than popular consensus, the public began to feel disenfranchised. When Westlife came within an ace of equalling Elvis and the Beatles’ record tally of No 1s ( 17 each, if you don’t count reissues), even Louis Walsh must have thought it a little rum.

This has been corrected in the age of the download, wh ich once again allows records to build in popularity , meaning singles can sit around for months on end. Martin Talbot of the Offi cial Charts Company is used to people complaining that the charts aren’t as important as they used to be. “As far as the artists are concerned, they 100% are. Robbie [Williams ] is No 1 this week – I know it meant a lot to him. And it has meant everything to new acts like Rita Ora or Cover Drive . It’s the only way they can match themselves against their peers in this multi-channel era.”

There’s no doubt singles sales have been reinvigorated in the digital era,

with downloads helping to sell more new releases as well as back catalogue material : unlikely oldies such as Showaddywaddy’s Under the Moon of Love have become million-sellers thanks to download oomph. We are also beyond the awkward industry strategies of the 90s and noughties, when singles were played on the radio weeks before they were in the shops, a major reason why they charted so high in the fi rst week: “ on air, on sale ” is a policy championed by Universal that means records are available to download as soon as they air on radio. It combats piracy while adding immediacy – and relevance – to the charts.

To the artists and the industry, at least, the UK singles chart is still No 1. A major reason for its continued authority is that it is entirely sales-based. As an eight-year-old, I bought a copy of a Wings single and expected it to climb one place in the following week’s chart ; it didn’t, it dropped, and I was rather upset. My logic may have been awry, but I still understood that the record at No 1 sold more copies than the record at No 2 . America, on the other hand, has always used a complex and potentially corruptible mix of sales, radio play and jukebox plays; when the more accurate and sales-orientated Nielsen Soundscan chart was introduced by Billboard in 1991, alternative and country records suddenly leapt up the charts at the expense of middle-of-the-road pop hits like Paula Abdul’s The Promise of a New Day and Roxette’s Fading Like a Flower.

For this reason, the Offi cial Charts Company is hesitant to introduce streaming to the singles chart. Talbot currently thinks it’s unnecessary : “It would be a much bigger decision in the UK than other countries because our chart has always been totally transparent. Nobody questions it. Anything that makes the mechanism more opaque needs thorough consideration.”

They may have diminished from their TotP heyday, but the British charts still ha ve cache and credibility, here and abroad. Radio 2’s Pick of the Pops has devoted two shows to playing the biggest-selling single from each year since 1952; last night, there was a parliamentary reception for acts who have scored million-sellers; and this Friday, BBC4 screens a 90-minute tribute called Pop Charts Britannia . Meanwhile, the Offi cial Charts Company website is getting ever more hits , which suggests younger pop fans aren’t mourning To tP the way people over 30 are: they’ve just found a diff erent way of divining and devouring chart statistics. We are still, it seems, a nation of trainspotters.

WELCOME TO THE CHARTS

I may have mentioned in passing that Ambridge is a bit on the quiet side (Lilian: “What are you doing?” Paul: “I’m watching paint dry”) but, surprisingly, the Radio Times ’s Ambridge Diary promised fi reworks last week. “Poor Jill is feeling wretchedly torn about the rift that has opened up in the Archer family,” it wrote.

I almost sat up sharply. I would have cleared my diary if it hadn’t been clear already. Every day I listened intently, picking up many a useful scrap of country lore (“You have to stay on top of things with hens”), but Jill remained in one piece and the Archer family unriven. The Radio Times had printed an old diary, dating from the frightful time Nigel fell off the roof . If there is a judge-led inquiry into shoddy journalism, I shall appear for the defence. The prospect of catastrophe quite brightened my week.

The only thing that actually happened was Emma Grundy got thinner. The Grundys have run out of money and you never saw a family further down the plughole. Peering down, you can see their bright little eyes peering back. Emma thin as tissue paper, Ed licking the last of the marge out of the tub, the baby turning blue. “’Er little ’ands feel cold, Em.” “Blow on ’em!” Dickens would have drawn the line at this. It is the credit squeeze spelled out in past-its-sell-by-date spaghetti.

Only sex, as Ed said hopefully to Emma, is free. So let’s celebrate that. Lilian has stumbled on her son James and Leonie in fl agrante in the bath.This being radio you can colour in the details for yourself, including how James managed with his leg in plaster. Shaken, Lilian is off ered gin and sympathy by Matt’s butter-wouldn’t-melt brother (“Put your head on my shoulder”). And ever since Rhys and Fallon were separated, the erotic tension between them has been like the elastic twang of a snapped suspender.

Please tell me there is someone round here who remembers suspenders.Nancy Banks Smith’s A Month in Ambridge returns on 12 December

Nancy Banks-Smith

A month in Ambridge

1. Al Martino

Here in My Heart

2. Jo Staff ord

You Belong to Me

3. Nat King Cole

Somewhere Along

the Way

4. Bing Crosby

The Isle of Innisfree

5. Guy Mitchell

Feet Up

6. Rosemary

Clooney

Half As Much

7. Frankie Laine

High Noon

7= Vera Lynn

(above)Forget Me Not

8. Doris Day &

Frankie Laine

Sugarbush

8= Ray Martin

Blue Tango

9. Vera Lynn

Homing Waltz

10. Vera Lynn

Auf Wiedersehn

10= Mario Lanza

Because You’re Mine

The fi rst NME Hit Parade, 14 November 1952

OverleafTop 5s from 1962 to 2012→


Arts

the Equals’ Baby Come Back. Below I Don’t Wanna Dance were a clutch of records that haven’t been off the radio in 30 years: the Bee Gees-penned Heartbreaker ; Tears for Fears’ Mad World, which Gary Jules would take to No 1 two decades later. Culture Club’s soft reggae had been No 1, while Marvin Gaye scored his last major hit .

19921. End of the Road Boyz II Men2. Would I Lie to You Charles & Eddie3. People Everyday Arrested Development4. Boss Drum The Shamen5. Run to You Rage

Boyz II Men’s snail-paced, whale-sized ballad had been No 1 for three weeks (it managed 13 in the US ) but would be

evicted by Charles & Eddie’s sweet 70s soul tribute a week later. Arrested Development gave conscious rap its biggest UK hit; the rave nation was represented by the Shamen and Rage, who gave an old Bryan Adams hit the full siren and airhorn treatment.

20021. Heaven DJ Sammy2. Dilemma Nelly ft. Kelly Rowland3. Die Another Day Madonna4. Ketchup Song Las Ketchup5. Like I Love You Justin Timberlake

Do Bryan Adams records get recycled into fl oorfi llers every 10 years? DJ Sammy’s Eurodance cover of his power ballad Heaven knocked Nelly and Kelly’s Grammy-winning Dilemma off the top. They were tailed by Las Ketchup’s daff y, post-summer holiday hit, Madonna’s forgettable Bond theme and the debut hit for solo Justin Timberlake, a Neptunes-produced modern pop classic.

20121. Robbie Williams Candy2. Labrinth feat. Emeli Sandé Beneath Your Beautiful3. The Wanted I Found You4. Adele Skyfall5. Swedish House Mafi a/MartinDon’t You Worry Child

This week’s top 5 is a pretty good cross-section of 2012 as a whole. Robbie Williams’ seventh No 1 – his fi rst in eight years – is helped by the recent irksome craze for adapting nursery rhymes, Ring a Ring o’ Roses

in this case. Labrinth and Emeli Sandé represent the “new earnest”; the Wanted revive the joys of falsetto boyband pop;

Adele turns in the best Bond theme since, ooh, Licence to

Kill; and Swedish House Mafi a once again wring out the 90s Europop rag. Bob Stanley

Music down the decades November’s top singles

19621. Lovesick Blues Frank Ifi eld2. Let’s Dance Chris Montez3. Telstar The Tornados4. Swiss Maid Del Shannon5. The Loco-Motion Little Eva

Yodelling Aussie Frank Ifi eld had the second of his four largely forgotten No 1s, although Let’s Dance and The Loco-Motion are still played at all good fairgrounds. Telstar, named after the communications satellite and featuring space-age noises, had previously been No 1, while Del Shannon’s track was much chirpier than his biggest hit, Runaway . Within months, this innocently enjoyable top 5 would sound antique: the Beatles revolution was imminent .

19721. Clair Gilbert O’Sullivan2. Mouldy Old Dough Lieutenant Pigeon3. Donna 10CC4. Elected Alice Cooper5. Loop Di Love Shag

It’s hard to imagine Clair – in which a man sing s about his desire to marry the girl he babysits – being released now, let alone reaching No 1. Lieutenant Pigeon’s teary, beery kneesup and Alice Cooper’s snarky political comment were pretty repres en tative of British and US mindsets in 1972. The other two are from Jonathan King’s UK label: 10CC’s doo-wop pastiche (their fi rst hit) and Loop Di Love, King’s growly cover of a Greek holiday hit.

19821. I Don’t Wanna Dance Eddy Grant2. Heartbreaker Dionne Warwick3. Mad World Tears for Fears4. Do You Really Want to Hurt MeCulture Club5. Sexual Healing Marvin Gaye

Eddy Grant’s previous No 1 had come 14 years earlier, as a singer on

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Top of the charts in 1982 …

Eddie Grant. Girls Aloud (below)


How did you discover jazz?By hearing people like Nat King Cole , Peggy Lee and Andy Williams . My folks liked to drive across the country to visit the grandparents. We’d be out in the desert, all the windows down, eating Velveeta cheese , with these guys on the radio. It wasn’t full-on jazz, but a lot of it was really swinging.

What was your big breakthrough?Dropping out of graduate school . I’d been studying philosophy at the University of Chicago . I hadn’t been doing well because I was sitting in with jazz musicians at night – it’s hard to read Heidegger, but it’s especially hard if you’re half asleep. So I said to myself, “ I’ve got nothing to lose – I’m living in a $100-a-month room, so I should really go after music.”

Each of your nine albums has been nominated for a Grammy. Are awards important? Grammy nominations are certainly

pleasant, but you can forget about them and lead a perfectly happy life – provided you have the approval of the musicians you work with.

Why do some people fi nd jazz diffi cult to get into?Because the demands of the intellect are a part of the jazz idiom: the ability to pay attention, and work out puzzles as you’re hearing them. But it’s a shame that people think jazz is relentlessly challenging, or that it’s trying to be a club they can’t join. I certainly don’t think of jazz that way; at my shows, I really do try to play both to those who get the in-jokes, and those who wish they could.

Do you suff er for your art?I f you start to dwell on your pain, the amount of pain will increase. I consider myself very fortunate. I have a beautiful wife who supports my work, and is raising our daughter when I’m out on the road. This year, I’ll be away

for 200 nights; my wife is providing an incredible example to our daughter of how strong a woman can be.

What one song would work as the soundtrack to your life?Carole King’s So Far Away . We recorded it for my latest album, 1619 Broadway; that recording really touched on my feelings of loss, of missing my family and wanting to be home.

Which other artists do you most admire?[Saxophonist and composer] Wayne Shorter represents to me not only the spearpoint-tip of the cutting edge of acoustic music in jazz, but the stories he tells through his compositions point quite profoundly to fundamental experiences of the psyche, heart and intellect. As [Rainer Maria] Rilke would say, he’s “living the questions”. Those questions are what art is made of. Interview by Laura Barnett.

Portrait of the artist Kurt Elling, jazz singer ‘I gave up studying philosophy – Heidegger’s hard if you’ve been playing jazz all night’

IN SHORT

Born: Chicago, 1967.

Career: Has released

nine albums, the

latest of which is

1619 Broadway, The

Brill Building Project .

Performs tonight

at the Southbank

Centre, London

SE1, as part of the

London jazz festival

(londonjazz

festival.co.uk).

Low point: “I’ve had

some very intense

sadness and pain –

but without those,

I wouldn’t be able

to communicate as

a singer.”

High point:

“Performing at the

Hollywood Bowl with

Wayne Shorter and

Herbie Hancock.”PH

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St James Theatre 0844 264 2140

DADDY LONG LEGSA new musical

Directed by John Cairdwww.stjamestheatre.co.uk

Shaftesbury Theatre 0207 379 5399

ROCK OF AGESTHE SMASH HIT MUSICAL

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RICHARD IIIIn repertoire

Tickets released every dayShakespearewestend.com

Hippodrome Casino, Matcham Room

LEA DELARIA02077698866 12-17Nov(not15)21.45

DOMINION 0844 847 1775

WE WILL ROCK YOUby QUEEN & BEN ELTON

Mon-Sat 7.30, Mat Sat 2.30Extra show last Wednesday

of every month at 2.30www.wewillrockyou.co.uk

New London Theatre020 7452 3000 / 0844 412 4654

WAR HORSEWarhorseonstage.com

APOLLO VICTORIA 0844 847 1696

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THE LION KINGTue-Sat 7.30, Wed, Sat & Sun 2.30

For Group/Education rates call08448717644 / Disney 02078450949

Savoy Theatre 0844 871 7687Will Young as Emcee

Michelle Ryan as Sally Bowles

CABARET

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The 39 StepsMon-Sat 8pm, Wed 3pm, Sat 4pm

HER MAJESTY'S 0844 412 2707THE BRILLIANT ORIGINAL

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ARTS THEATRE 020 7836 8463A Radio Play by Samuel Beckett

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CHARIOTS OF FIRE***** 'A magnificent triumph'

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TOP HAT"A musical like this comes around

once in a lifetime." Sunday TelTue-Sat 7.30, Tue,Thu & Sat 2.30

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London Palladium 0844 412 4655TOMMY STEELE in

THE SPECTACULAR MUSICAL

SCROOGE

Wyndham’s Theatre 0844 4825120

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Prince Edward 0844 482 5152

JERSEY BOYSWinner Best Musical! Oliviers

Tue-Sat 7.30,Tue&Sat 3pm, Sun 5pm

QUEEN'S 0844 482 5160

LES MISERABLESWINNER! 2012 Olivier

Audience AwardEves 7.30, Mats Wed & Sat 2.30

www.LesMis.com

LYRIC THEATRE 0844 412 4661

THRILLER – LIVE!Tue-Fri7.30, Sat 4&8, Sun 3.30&7.30

Flyingmusicboxoffice.com

Adelphi Theatre 0844 579 0094NOW PREVIEWING

THE BODYGUARDMon-Sat 7.30pm, Wed & Sat 3pmwww.thebodyguardmusical.com

NOVELLO 0844 482 5115'ABBA-Solutely Fabulous' D.Mail

MAMMA MIA!Mon-Sat 7.45, Thurs & Sat 3pm,

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Piccadilly Theatre 0844 871 3055

VIVA FOREVER!Based on the songs of the Spice Girls

Book by Jennifer SaundersFrom 27 November | £20-£67.50www.VivaForeverTheMusical.com

DRURY LANE 0844 871 8810

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Duchess Theatre 0844 412 4659

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Vaudeville Theatre 0844 412 4663

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Television

Chateau Chunder: When Australian Wine Changed the World (BBC4) opened with an excerpt from a classic Monty Python audio

sketch called Australian Table Wines . As a child I had the record it came from, and I memorised the sketch more or less phonetically (“Nuits-Saint Wogga Wogga”), because I could understand not a bit of it. By the time I realised that the idea of Australian wines being worthy of expert commentary was inherently funny, it wasn’t any more.

This engaging, rather rollicking fi lm told the story of how Australian wine’s reputation changed so dramatically. Australia had been producing wine since the 1830s, but apart from a prod-uct called medicated wine – basically sherry enriched with beef extract – no one drank much of it, least of all the Australians . They drank beer, in copious quantities. Winemaker Bruce Tyrrell recalled that his girlfriend’s parents disapproved of him because of his fam-ily’s business – he was a “plonky”. “If you drank wine you were either queer, eccentric or both,” he said.

Not that it was a delicate business. Tyrrell remembered his uncle sitting in the winery with a gun on his lap, and shooting a rat dead as it made its way along a roof beam. “It fell into the red ferment. I said: ‘Do you want me to get that out, Uncle Dan?’ He said, ‘Nah, it’ll add a bit of body.’”

Export seemed the only solution, but in the obvious target country, Britain, hardly anybody but the upper classes drank wine, and they were snobbish about Australian eff orts . In 1965 Aus-tralia exported 8m litres of wine a year, about a 50th of France’s sales. In the 1970s, exports actually declined a little.

Several factors resulted in the sub-sequent huge turnaround, including technology, marketing and a certain eagerness to please. Oz Clarke remembered being pestered by an Aus-tralian grower at a trade fair who asked

demand and began sending inferior stoppers, the Aussies invented the Stelvin closure, or screw cap.

Even as critics were beginning to take notice of Australia’s fi nest vintages, the industry down under was beginning to democratise the market in a way that was to have long-term consequences. The screw cap was followed by the wine box – or as it is known in Australia, the goon bag – which didn’t do much for the reputation of the wine inside. Now that Australia is far and away the no 1 wine exporter , their reputation for making crappy wine has returned to haunt them. This cautionary ending reminded me that this fi lm wasn’t – or wasn’t meant to be – a giant advert, but I enjoyed it so much that I can forgive its boosterish enthusiasm .

On Heston’s Fantastical Food (Channel 4), Heston made a giant ice-cream cone. On Dara Ó Briain’s Science Club (BBC2), meanwhile, they calculated the speed of light using a microwave oven and some cheese toasties. In two programmes designed, one imagines, to entice similar audi-ences, the diff erences couldn’t have been more stark. Heston’s mission suff ered from a woolliness of intent that made it hard to justify the gran-deur of the project – all that ice-cream, all those forklifts – where Ó Briain’s budget experiment managed to make a complex concept at least partially comprehensible (I could explain how it works easily, but I’ll direct you to the show’s website for reasons of space).

Heston talks a lot about “magic” in his series, but in all the pointless supersizing I see only off -putting excess. And Ó Briain’s resident science expert Mark Miodownik faced his own, bigger challenges with the microwave toasty trial: “I’m cheese-phobic, so I can’t touch cheese,” he said. He meant it.

Last night's TVChardonnay, or Kanga Rouge? How Australia conquered the wine world

By Tim Dowling

him what kind of wine he liked and what kind of price he was prepared to pay. The next year the grower turned up at the same fair with two wines – red and white, £3.99 a bottle – made to Clarke’s specifi cations. Advertising focused on de-snobbifying wine for new British consumers. The name Kanga Rouge wasn’t a gag from a Python sketch – there really was such a thing.

Blind tastings got round the sniffi ness of critics. When the French banned Australians from describing their products as burgundy or chablis, they simply called their wines after grape varieties: chardonnay, shiraz, cabernet (the rise of the ubiquitous chardonnay grape began after the Tyrrells nicked some cuttings from Penfold’s vineyards ). When Portugal couldn’t keep up with Australian cork P

HO

TO

GR

AP

H I

AN

BA

TT

/BB

C

I’ve yet to tune into

I’m a Celebrity. To be

honest, I’m not sure I

have the strength.

AND ANOTHER THING

Wine de-snobbifi ed … the Aussies got round the sniffi ness of critics


Watch this

TV and radio

Brazil With Michael Palin9pm, BBC1As with a Monty Python show, this fi nal part of Palin’s Brazilian doc eff ort-lessly fi nds a way to link one scene to the next. Tonight he visits an aerospace company that’s now a major player on the world stage, links to a story about helicopter use among Sao Paulo’s super-rich, takes a ride in one with a waste-management mil-lionaire, then meets the star of a soap about life among the garbage-collecting under class. Palin’s skill is as it was 25 years ago: to bring his gentle charm and wit to proceedings, all the while remaining the essential beige-trousered Englishman abroad. John Robinson

The Hour9pm, BBC2Abi Morgan’s TV newsroom drama returns. We rejoin the principals in November 1957, with grog-pickled anchor Hector hanging out at Soho nighclub El Paradis and enjoying the celebrity life. Trouble is, his show has lost its edge, possibly because chip-on-the-shoulder trou-blemaker Freddie has been ousted. Enter a new head of news, Randall Brown, played by Peter Capaldi as if he were Malcolm Tucker’s obsessive-compulsive uncle, determined to shake things up. Jonathan Wright

Secret State10pm, Channel 4Second of four parts in this political thriller. Dawkins (Gabriel Byrne) is now installed as the new prime minister as the search goes

on for the black box from the late PM’s doomed plane. Meanwhile, a public inquiry is launched into the Tees-side disaster. While Dawkins makes sincere noises about transparency, his cabinet does their best “Yeah, right” face. It’s an amazing cast but they talk to each other like they are explaining politics to Amy Childs. Julia Raeside

Getting On10pm, BBC4Gallows humour must be part of working in a hospital, but it’s testament to the quality of Getting On that more of the comedy derives from the characters than their particular situation. In tonight’s episode, the mood is mixed in the ward. Kim (Jo Brand) is on the verge of chucking in her degree course, while Den is buoyant thanks to her pregnancy and recent romantic trip to Nor-way. When the pediatric on-cology unit has a Christmas card competition, however, a submission from the ward threatens to set off a data protection landmine. JR

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ees The Hour, BBC2

Brazil With Michael Palin, BBC1 Channel 4

11.0 Late Junction. Max Reinhardt presents music by Sofi a Gubaidulina and performances from Bugge Wesseltoft and Henning Kraggerud, plus the North Mississippi Allstars with If I Was Jesus. 12.30 Through The Night. Including music by Nivers, Bach, Alain, Lubos Sluka, Eben, Kuchar, Mozart, Schubert, Reicha, Schumann, Handel, Rossini, Haydn, Schulhoff , Skerjanc, Borodin, Gibbons and Walton.

Radio 492.4-94.6 MHz; 198kHz

6.0 Today. 8.31 (LW) Yesterday In Parliament. 8.58 (LW) Weather 9.0 Midweek. Presented by Libby Purves. 9.45 (LW) Daily Service. 9.45 (FM)

BBC1 BBC2 ITV1

6.0pm Eggheads (R) (S) With Jeremy Vine.6.30 Strictly Come Dancing — It Takes Two (S) Daily fanzine with Zoe Ball.

6.0pm Local News (S) Weather6.15 ITV News And Weather (S)6.45 Emmerdale (S) (AD)

6.0pm The Simpsons (S) (AD) Bart trades lives with his double.6.30 Hollyoaks (S) (AD) A disaster rocks the village.

6.0pm BBC News (S) Weather6.30 Regional News Programmes (S) Weather

7.0 Celebrity Antiques Road Trip (S) Actors Stefanie Powers and Don Warrington hunt for antiques in St Albans, Hertfordshire.

7.15 Live International Football (S) Sweden v England (kick-off 7.30pm). Coverage of the friendly fi xture from the Friends Arena in Stockholm. Hosted by Adrian Chiles.

7.0 Channel 4 News (S) .7.55 4thought.tv (S) Discussion of whether faith is a matter of nature or nurture.

7.0 The One Show (S) Matt Baker and Alex Jones host. With an update on the progress of Team Rickshaw. (Followed by BBC News; Regional News.)

8.0 MasterChef: The Professionals (S) In the skills test, the remaining chefs have to prepare a crown of duck for roasting and the legs for confi t.

8.0 SuperScrimpers: Winter Survival Tips (S) Mrs Moneypenny off ers seasonal money-saving tips.

8.0 DIY SOS: The Big Build Children In Need Special (S) Nick Knowles and co give a makeover to The Yard, a centre for children with additional needs in Edinburgh.

9.0 The Hour (S) (AD) The newsroom drama returns for a second series. It’s 1957 and a new head of news, Randall Brown (Peter Capaldi), decides to shake up his team.

9.45 ITV News And Weather (S)

9.0 Grand Designs (S) Kevin McCloud revisits a couple who radically transformed a 1970s bungalow set in ancient woodland on the Isle of Wight.

9.0 Brazil With Michael Palin (S) (AD) The broadcaster travels in the south of Brazil, where he meets the heir to the country’s defunct throne before fi nishing his journey at Iguazu Falls. Last in the series.

11.20 Great Continental Railway Journeys (R) (S) (AD) Michael Portillo heads to France as he retraces journeys featured in Bradshaw’s Continental Railway Guide from 1913. (Shown Thursday.)

11.20 Rumor Has It (Rob Reiner, 2005) (S) (AD) A woman discovers her family may have inspired The Graduate. Great premise for a romcom, badly executed. With Jennifer Aniston and Kevin Costner.

11.05 Random Acts (S) Short animation about a lobotomy.11.10 Geordies Overboard (S) Conclusion. Chairman Barry Elliott faces resistance as he shakes up the way that Blyth’s lifeboat service is run.

11.25 Film 2012 With Claudia Winkleman (S) New series. (Followed by National Lottery Update.)11.55 Salvage (Lawrence Gough, 2009) (S) Premiere. Eff ective Brit horror, with Neve McIntosh.

Radio 390.2-92.4 MHz

6.30 Breakfast. Music, news and the occasional surprise, presented by Sara Mohr-Pietsch. 9.0 Essential Classics. With Sarah Walker. Including the Essential CD: Five Italian Oboe Concertos played by Nicholas Daniel, performances by pianist Noriko Ogawa, and this week’s guest, author Anne Fine. 12.0 Composer Of The Week: Big Band. Donald Macleod explores the decline of swing and the birth of big band bebop, and Guy Barker discusses his experiences of playing with the great

Radio trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie.1.0 Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert. Soprano Ruby Hughes sings Schumann’s Seven Songs, the Heath Quartet plays Tippett’s Fourth String Quartet and baritone Roderick Williams performs a song-cycle by Ireland. 2.0 Afternoon On 3. The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and chief conductor Donald Runnicles perform Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony and John Wilson leads the BBC Concert Orchestra in Elgar.3.30 Choral Evensong. Live from Ripon Cathedral. Director of Music: Andrew Bryden. Assistant Director of Music: Edmund Aldhouse.4.30 In Tune. Sean Raff erty introduces performances by members of Aurora and klezmer band She’Koyokh, as well as the John Law

Trio, and talks to conductor Hannu Lintu. 6.30 Composer Of The Week: Big Band. (R)7.30 Radio 3 Live In Concert. From Symphony Hall, Birmingham, Jac van Steen conducts the CBSO in Schoenberg’s Five Pieces for Orchestra and Mahler’s Seventh Symphony. Presented by Martin Handley. 10.0 Free Thinking. Vicky Featherstone gives a talk on the role of a modern-day national theatre in shaping and capturing a country’s identity and history, recorded at the Free Thinking Festival.10.45 The Free Thinking Essay: New Generation Thinkers. Joshua Nall, one of Radio 3’s New Generation Thinkers, gives a talk on the Victorian obsession with the planet Mars, recorded at the Sage Gateshead.

10.0 The Culture Show (S) Tom Wolfe discusses his new novel, Miami-set Back to Blood, with Andrew Graham-Dixon.10.30 Newsnight (S) With Gavin Esler. (Followed by Weather.)

10.15 Local News/Weather (S)10.20 International Football Highlights (S) Action from Sweden v England.

10.0 Secret State (S) (AD) Tom Dawkins orders an inquiry into toxicology discrepancies at the Scarrow blast. British intelligence locates al-Qaeda’s chief, Tamin al-Ghamdi. Starring Gabriel Byrne.

10.0 BBC News (S)10.25 Regional News And Weather (S)10.35 The National Lottery Wednesday Night Draws (S) 10.45 Have I Got A Bit More News For You (S) Extended version of Friday’s show.

Film of the daySalvage (11.55pm, BBC1) This tense, low-budget sci-fi movie sets an alien horror loose in what was once the Brookside set: odd couple Neve McIntosh and Shaun Dooley try to rescue her estranged daughter


Other channels

E46.0pm The Big Bang Theory. Raj lusts after a girl at a party. 6.30 The Big Bang Theory. Leonard and Sheldon’s fl at is burgled. 7.0 Hollyoaks. The village reels in the aftermath of the double wedding disaster. 7.30 How I Met Your Mother. Ted sets up his own architecture company. 8.0 The Big Bang Theory. Leonard confronts a bully from his past. 8.30 2 Broke Girls. Caroline tries to make extra money by taking another job. 9.0 The Big Bang Theory. Sheldon is encouraged to feign interest in Amy’s career. 9.30 The Work Experience. Dominic gives one of Grade’s dresses to Nikki Grahame. 10.0 The Inbetweeners. The gang goes on a fi eld trip to Swanage. 10.35 The Inbetweeners. Will is given a work experience placement at a garage. 11.05 Rude Tube: All Things Weird And Wonderful. Internet videos, including two camels in a car.

Film46.55pm Night At The Museum: Battle Of The Smithsonian. Fantasy comedy sequel, starring Ben Stiller. 9.0 Once Upon A Time In The Midlands. Comedy, starring Robert Carlyle. 11.05 The Scouting Book For Boys. Premiere. Drama, starring Thomas Turgoose.

FX6.0pm Leverage. The team confronts a fraudulent adoption agency. 7.0 NCIS. The team gets close to tracking down a Mexican drug kingpin. 8.0 NCIS. The team searches for a kidnapped girl. 9.0 The Walking Dead. Merle makes a request of the Governor. 10.0 American Horror Story: Asylum. A raging storm approaches Briarcliff . 11.0 The Booth At The End. The Man’s patrons realise he is beginning to live up to his end of the bargain. 11.30 Family Guy. Lois becomes a model. 12.0 Family Guy. Peter befriends actor James Woods.

ITV26.35pm You’ve Been Framed! Harry Hill narrates camcorder calamities. 7.0 Gossip Girl. Blair’s mother, Eleanor, gives her an ultimatum. 8.0 Totally Bonkers Guinness World Records. Incredible and peculiar record-breaking attempts. 8.30 You’ve Been Framed! Harry Hill narrates

Channel 5 BBC3 BBC4 Atlantic

camcorder calamities. 9.0 Girlfri3nds. The contest concludes. Last in the series. 10.0 I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here Now! With Joe Swash and Laura Whitmore. 11.05 Switch. Grace’s new relationship appears to be going well.

Sky16.0pm Futurama. Fry fi nds himself the ruler of an alien world. 6.30 The Simpsons. Marge’s driving habits come under scrutiny. 7.0 The Simpsons. With the guest voice of Joan Rivers. 7.30 The Simpsons. Lisa develops a crush on a teacher. 8.0 The Glee Project. The hopefuls demonstrate their fearlessness. 9.0 Last Resort. Chaplin heads the search for three missing crew members. 10.0 Fringe. The freedom fi ghters cross paths with former boss Phillip Broyles. 11.0 Ross Kemp: The Invisible Wounded. Post-traumatic stress disorder among ex-service personnel. 12.0 Trollied. Gavin struggles to fi nd Lorraine’s replacement.

Sky Arts 16.0pm First Love. Stephen Mangan performs at the Cambridge Folk Festival. 7.0 Work Of Art: The Next Great Artist. Creating artworks incorporating car parts. 8.0 Diana — Her Story: The Book That Changed Everything. Andrew Morton discusses his 1992 biography of the Princess of Wales. 9.0 Nation’s Best Am Dram. New series. Competition to fi nd the UK’s best amateur dramatic society. 10.0 Becoming Queen. The story of the rock band’s career. 11.20 Queen Rock Montreal. A 1981 concert by the band.

TCM7.25pm Thunder Over The Plains. Western, starring Randolph Scott. 9.0 US Marshals. Thriller sequel, starring Tommy Lee Jones. 11.25 The Jacket. Psychological thriller, starring Adrien Brody.

3.0 Money Box Live. With Paul Lewis.3.30 All In The Mind. Research at Queen Mary University of London into the subject of gaydar. (R)4.0 Thinking Allowed. The nature and causes of the English summer riots in 2011.4.30 The Media Show. Stories from the fast-changing media industry.5.0 PM. With Eddie Mair.5.57 Weather6.0 Six O’Clock News6.30 Count Arthur Strong’s Radio Show! The former variety star goes fi shing. (R)7.0 The Archers. Emma hits rock bottom.7.15 Front Row. A review of The Eff ect, a new play by Lucy Prebble.7.45 Children In Need: Jess’s Story. By Nell Leyshon.8.0 The Moral Maze. With

Michael Portillo, Kenan Malik, Giles Fraser and Claire Fox.8.45 Four Thought. The causes of gang culture amoung young Somali men.9.0 (LW) Frontiers. Theories on gender and ageing.9.0 (FM) Frontiers. Theories on gender and ageing.9.30 Midweek. Presented by Libby Purves.9.59 Weather10.0 The World Tonight. With Robin Lustig.10.45 Book At Bedtime: The Liar’s Gospel. By Naomi Alderman. Abridged by Sally Marmion.11.0 Irish Micks And Legends. Humorous contemporary versions of Irish folk tales.11.15 Living With Mother. Comedy drama, starring Tom Goodman-Hill and Alison Steadman.

11.30 Today In Parliament. Political round-up.12.0 News And Weather 12.30 Book Of The Week: Former People. By Douglas Smith. (R) 12.48 Shipping Forecast

Radio 4 ExtraDigital only

6.0 Orphans In Waiting 6.30 White Heat 7.0 The Alan Davies Show 7.30 Gloomsbury 8.0 Hancock’s Half Hour 8.30 I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again 9.0 At Home With The Hardys 9.30 The Party Line 10.0 Daniel Deronda 11.0 Chattering11.15 HMS Surprise12.0 Hancock’s Half Hour12.30 I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again 1.0 Orphans In Waiting 1.30 White Heat2.0 The Color Purple

2.15 Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen’s Men Of Fashion2.30 God’s Architect: Pugin And The Building Of Romantic Britain2.45 Other People’s Children3.0 Daniel Deronda4.0 The 4 O’Clock Show5.0 Ring Around The Bath5.30 Radio Reunited5.35 The Alan Davies Show6.0 The Price Of Fear6.30 The Woman In Black7.0 Hancock’s Half Hour7.30 I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again 8.0 Orphans In Waiting 8.30 White Heat9.0 Chattering 9.15 HMS Surprise 10.0 Comedy Club: Gloomsbury10.30 Just Plain Gardening10.45 The Consultants11.0 The Hare Lane Diaries11.30 Laura Solon: Talking And Not Talking12.0 The Price Of Fear 12.30 The Woman In Black

1.0 Orphans In Waiting 1.30 White Heat 2.0 At Home With The Hardys 2.30 The Party Line 3.0 Daniel Deronda 4.0 90 By 90 The Full Set 4.15 HMS Surprise 5.0 Ring Around The Bath 5.30 The Alan Davies Show

World ServiceDigital and 198 kHz after R4

8.30 Business Daily 8.50 Sports News 9.0 News 9.06 HARDtalk 9.30 The Strand 9.50 Witness 10.0 World Update 11.0 World Have Your Say 11.30 Click 11.50 From Our Own Correspondent 12.0 News 12.06 Outlook 12.30 The Strand 12.50 Witness 1.0 News 1.06 HARDtalk 1.30 Business Daily 1.50 Sports News 2.0 Newshour 3.0

More4

Book Of The Week: Former People. By Douglas Smith.10.0 Woman’s Hour. 11.0 From Worcester With Love. Peter White revisits his boarding school for the blind to meet current pupils.11.30 Mr And Mrs Smith. The couple discuss Annabelle’s mother’s 60th birthday party. (R)12.0 News12.04 You And Yours. Consumer aff airs.12.57 Weather1.0 The World At One. Presented by Martha Kearney.1.45 In Pursuit Of The Ridiculous. Investigating rare orchids.2.0 The Archers. It is Peggy’s birthday. (R)2.15 Afternoon Drama: Two Pipe Problems. Sandy revisits his birthplace in Greenock.

6.0pm Home And Away (R) (S) (AD) Romeo has a setback.6.30 5 News At 6.30 (S)

6.20pm Come Dine With Me (R) (S) There’s a car-themed evening as the dinner-party challenge heads for Stockport.

6.0pm House (R) A meningitis epidemic hits the hospital.

7.0 Emergency Bikers (R) (S) Paramedics go to the aid of a child who’s been knocked down. (Followed by 5 News Update.)

7.0pm Young Apprentice (R) (S) The hopefuls have to publish a new cookbook and pitch it to Waterstones.

7.0pm World News Today (S) Weather7.30 Timothy Spall: All At Sea (R) (S) (AD) Timothy and wife Shane put in at Whitby and explore the town’s links to classic horror novel Dracula.

7.30 Hugh’s 3 Good Things (S) Recipes include roast chicken pieces with tarragon and tomatoes, and a salad of cold chicken with green beans and black olives.

7.0 House (R) A patient suff ers from recurring strokes.

8.0 The Removal Men (S) A team has to move a 200-year-old bed in a medieval castle. (Followed by 5 News At 9.)

8.0 Gavin & Stacey (R) (S) (AD) Stacey looks forward to a trip to see her family.8.30 Gavin & Stacey (R) (S) (AD) There’s tension after the newlyweds spend the day house-hunting.

8.0 Britain’s Best Drives (R) (S) Richard Wilson explores the Wye Valley, said to be the birthplace of British tourism.8.30 Tales From The Wild Wood (S) Rob Penn learns how to make charcoal.

8.0 Sarah Beeny’s Selling Houses (R) (S) In Beckenham, Sarah off ers home-selling advice to the owners of a converted church, a 19th-century cottage and a spacious maisonette.

8.0 Richard E Grant’s Hotel Secrets (R) The actor meets Heidi Fleiss as he discovers stories of scandal linked to the world’s most famous hotels.

9.0 Erin Brockovich (Steven Soderbergh, 2000) (S) A single mother becomes a campaigning legal worker. Oscar-winning biographical drama, starring Julia Roberts and Albert Finney.

9.0 Unsafe Sex In The City (S) Just four weeks after being diagnosed with HIV, a patient thinks that he may have syphilis too. Last in the series.

9.0 Breakfast, Lunch And Dinner (S) Clarissa Dickson Wright charts the history of lunch in Britain, much shaped by the Earl of Sandwich’s intervention in the 18th century.

9.0 24 Hours In A&E (R) (S) A patient with schizophrenia neglects to take his diabetes medication and has to be admitted to King’s. Last in the series.

9.0 The Sopranos (R) (S) AJ steals sacramental wine and shows up drunk at a gym class. Tony remembers his own childhood.

11.45 Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (R) (S) A woman in the midst of an acrimonious divorce accuses her husband of rape.

11.10 Family Guy (R) (S) Peter meets his biological father.11.30 American Dad! (R) (S) Stan takes pills to stay awake all night.11.50 American Dad! (R) (S) Roger starts spending time with another family.

11.30 Apples: British To The Core (R) (S) (AD) Chris Beardshaw fi nds out how British gardeners have contributed to the history of the fruit..

11.10 Embarrassing Bodies (R) (S) Doctor Pixie McKenna treats a man who has an oozing wound on his bottom. Plus a forensic examination of the portable toilets at a music festival.

11.20 Don’t Sit In The Front Row (R) (S) With Frank Skinner, Andrew Maxwell and Susan Calman. Presented by Jack Dee.11.50 The Sopranos (R) (S) (Shown at 9.0pm.)

10.0 Unzipped (S) Danny Dyer and Laura Whitmore join Greg James and Russell Kane for another look at contemporary life.10.45 Family Guy (R) (S) Brian accidentally sells Stewie’s favourite teddy at a garage sale.

10.0 Getting On (S) A mix-up with the oncology Christmas card competition causes problems. 10.30 Pavlopetri — The City Beneath The Waves (R) (S) (AD) Exploring the world’s oldest submerged city.

10.0 One Born Every Minute (R) (S) (AD) A fashion designer, who skipped antenatal classes so as not to hear distressing stories of pain, opts for a water birth.

10.05 Boardwalk Empire (R) (S) (AD) Eli hosts a family gathering for Easter Sunday. Gyp Rosetti asks for a blessing from don Joe Masseria.

World Briefi ng 3.30 Outlook 4.0 News 4.06 HARDtalk 4.30 Sport Today 5.0 World Briefi ng 5.30 World Business Report 6.0 World Have Your Say 7.0 World Briefi ng 7.30 Health Check 7.50 From Our Own Correspondent 8.0 News 8.06 HARDtalk 8.30 The Strand 8.50 Witness 9.0 Newshour 10.0 News 10.06 Outlook 10.30 World Business Report 11.0 World Briefi ng 11.30 Business Daily 11.50 Witness 12.0 World Briefi ng 12.30 Health Check 12.50 Sports News 1.0 World Briefi ng 1.30 World Business Report 1.50 From Our Own Correspondent 2.0 News 2.06 HARDtalk 2.30 Outlook 3.0 Newsday 3.30 The Strand 3.50 Witness 4.0 Newsday 4.30 Health Check 4.50 From Our Own Correspondent 5.0 Newsday

The Scouting Book For Boys, Film4

Full TV listings For comprehensive programme details see the Guardian Guide every Saturday or go to tvlistings.guardian.co.uk/


If...

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Puzzles

2 49 6 1 7

1 4 57 2

2 18 6

1 6 44 2 5 9

3 7

Sudoku no 2,344

Medium. Fill the grid so that each row, column

and 3x3 box contains the numbers 1-9.

Printable version at guardian.co.uk/sudoku

Stuck? For help call 0906 751 0036. Calls cost 77p a

minute from a BT Landline. Calls from other networks

may vary and mobiles will be considerably higher.

Service supplied by ATS. Call 0844 836 9769 for

customer service (charged at local rate, 2p a min from

a BT landline). Free tough puzzles at www.puzzler.

com/guardian

2 7 8 4 1 9 5 3 64 1 6 8 5 3 2 7 99 5 3 7 6 2 1 8 45 9 2 3 7 4 8 6 11 8 4 2 9 6 3 5 76 3 7 5 8 1 9 4 23 4 1 6 2 5 7 9 88 2 5 9 4 7 6 1 37 6 9 1 3 8 4 2 5

Solution to no 2,343

Quick crossword no 13,266

1 2 3 4

5 6

7 8

9 10 11

12

13 14

15

16 17

18

Across

5 Chest bone not attached to the sternum (8,3)

7 + (4) 8 Typical example (8) 9 Viral disease in

children (7)11 Irish poet and

dramatist, d. 1939 (5)13 Here it is! (5)14 Inadequate (7)16 Nonconforming (8)17 Jacob’s twin brother (4)18 It holds a computer’s

central printed circuit (11)

Down

1 Flip (coin) (4) 2 Cork (7) 3 Growl in a threatening

manner (5) 4 Level of steepness (8) 5 Partition in case,

creating a concealed space (5,6)

6 Everyday (3-8)10 Inwardly-directed

compassion (4-4)12 Kind of kangaroo (7)15 Group of eight

musicians (5)17 Electronic marketplace

(4)

Solution no 13,265

C O B W E B O P A Q U EH U N I U LI N N E S R U C T I O NP K U A K E IP R O W E S S A C T O NY F P X O

F I R E B R E A KG E E A CR A B I D R E B I R T HA A F R I A OP A R S L E Y K Y O T OP G A E K SA V E N G E F R E E Z E

On the web For tips and all manner of crossword debates go to guardian.co.uk/crosswords

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Stuck? For help call 0906 751 0039 or text

GUARDIANQ followed by a space, the day and

date the crossword appeared another space and

the CLUE reference to 85010 (e.g GUARDIANQ

Wednesday24 Down20). Calls cost 77p a minute

from a BT Landline. Calls from other networks

may vary and mobiles will be considerably higher.

Texts cost 50p a clue plus standard network

charges. Service supplied by ATS. Call 0844 836

9769 for customer service (charged at local rate,

2p a min from a BT landline).

the guardian g2 14.11.2012

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