Ed Miliband is now more popular (or perhaps more accurately "less unpopular") than David Cameron according to recent polls, - and as our parliamentary sketchwriter Simon Hoggart notes, his performances in the Commons are getting stronger. Even the usually hostile Spectator is starting to take seriously the prospect of a Miliband premiership.In the studio to discuss Ed Miliband's change in fortunes are Guardian columnists Gaby Hinsliff and Zoe Williams and the Observer's Nick Cohen. Also up for discussion this week is the enduring appeal of an EU referendum. Ed Miliband has been floating the possibility of including an in/out vote on Europe in the next party manifesto. But could the tactic designed to destabilise the Tories backfire?Plus we look at the Beecroft report on employment, ... Continue reading →
Is there a more famous address in rock? ... Graceland Mansion, the former home of Elvis Presley, in Memphis, Tennessee. Photograph: Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Location, location, location … last week we asked for your favourite songs about addresses. Musicians and songwriters have projected drama and mystery on to various buildings, or simply elevated the addresses in their life by immortalising them in song.RR commenter ShivSidecar describes former XTC keyboardist Barry Andrews' 1980 single as "a sepulchral masterpiece". Rossmore Road describes in detail a west London street ("There's a doll's house shop on the corner of Lisson Grove", and so on). It makes the mundane seem magical.Moondog was an eccentric composer, "the Viking of 6th Avenue", who lived much of his life on the streets of New ... Continue reading →
Heavy metal culture has always been on the outside, writes Gareth Hague. Outside cool, outside fashion, outside the zeitgeist. As such, it has its own momentum outside a mainstream culture that views it with confusion. Being separate from mainstream society is what youth cults are about. But with heavy metal culture, somehow there has been a separation from a specific connection to a moment, or a connection to something more universal, that has allowed it to carry on where other youth cultures fade or become parodies of themselves. Heavy metal in its different forms has been vital, energised and relentless since certainly the mid-1970s. Heavy guitar music, long hair and denim must be a potent and universal representation of male teen rebellion. Heavy metal has ... Continue reading →
Do monolithic slabs of roughly-finished concrete make you go weak at the knees? If so, you are going to enjoy this particular Top 10 very much indeed.Brutalism’s bold, monumental, and on the whole, deadly serious style remains controversial, years after it was replaced by Post-Modernism and the Neo Vernacular style.There is a little confusion as to who first coined the term Brutalism — Swedish architect Hans Asplund claims to have used it in a conversation in 1950, but its first written usage was by English architect Alison Smithson in 1952. The term was borrowed from pioneering French architects and refers to unfinished or roughly finished concrete (beton brut in French).The following are a mix of familiar and somewhat less well-known Brutalist buildings in London. Please ... Continue reading →
Zara Phillips carries Olympic torch on horseback - video The Queen's granddaughter Zara Phillips brings the Olympic flame to Cheltenham racecourse on the back of her horse Toytown. Phillips lit a cauldron at the racecourse on Wednesday, marking the end of day five of the relay. Her mother, Princess Anne, received the flame in Greece last week Continue reading →
