David Ebersman (left), CFO of Facebook: regulators are now looking into whether disclosures made to key investors ahead of the IPO violated securities laws. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images It is three trading days after Facebook went public, and we now know that the IPO will live forever in the history books – just not in the way anyone had planned. Had Facebook openly set out to sabotage its own IPO, it could not have invented a better or more remarkable debacle: a tale of financial chaos fit for history books. Facebook stock has lost 20% of its value in only three days. In that alone, it is not remarkable. Large IPOs rarely perform well just after going public. Fund manager Och-Ziff, for instance, fell 24% ... Continue reading →

Last Sunday, Manchester City, the club I grew up supporting, won the Premier League, 44 years after their last championship. City's all-star squad, paid for from the oil fortunes of the club's far-fetched owner, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi, were playing Queens Park Rangers, who were struggling to stay in the league. The old Manchester City, who had stumbled through 30 years of mishaps since their excellent 1970s, might have been expected to flap at such a moment of triumph. But this team is different. Few of the 48,000 supporters at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday truly felt they would witness the kind of wobble that has come to be known over the years as "Typical City". At the end of ... Continue reading →

Celebrity interviews are often prosaic or, worse still, completely saccharine affairs where both interviewer and interviewee become lost in a mutual haze of self-promotion. The Conversation cuts the crap with its honest discussions, with host Amanda de Cadenet interviewing some of the world's most prominent female personalities, from Gwyneth Paltrow to Jane Fonda. It hit the headlines for asking celebrities to reveal their favourite sex positions, but there's far more to this series than tabloid-friendly disclosures. The words "From executive producer Demi Moore" may raise your cynicism levels, but the mood is often more TED than TMZ, and it's classier than your average celeb fodder. And who needs friends when you can spend your lunchbreak with Sarah Silverman? Photograph: Getty If you haven't caught The ... Continue reading →

Jemajem is a young, dark-eyed militant leader who bears the self-important nom de guerre of "the Guevara of south Yemen". Based in the impoverished port of Aden, he belongs to the Hirak group of activists, who have been calling for south Yemen to be allowed to secede from the north for half a decade.It's not hard to see why he thinks an independent future for the south would be better than its current situation. Sadness and poverty settled on Aden many decades ago. The streets are littered with piles of rotting fish and festering rubbish, while haggard men sit on pavements chewing qat to stave off the boredom of unemployment. Cliffs of volcanic rock are crowded with migrants' illegal shacks made of breeze blocks and ... Continue reading →

I do not know how orchestrated this was; and I do not know how calculated it is. What I know is that, absorbing the news, I was uncharacteristically at a loss for words for a while, didn't know what to write, and, like many Dish readers, there are tears in my eyes. So let me simply say: I think of all the gay kids out there who now know they have their president on their side. I think of Maurice Sendak, who just died, whose decades-long relationship was never given the respect it deserved. I think of the centuries and decades in which gay people found it impossible to believe that marriage and inclusion in their own families was possible for them, so crushed were ... Continue reading →

Manchester City fans show a unified front in the face of the Manchester United veteran Ryan Giggs on Monday. Photograph: Tom Jenkins for the Guardian In a phrase which sounds authoritative but radiates helplessness, the Premier League declares itself "ownership neutral" meaning it has no preference for any structure on which England's great football clubs have come to be orchestrated. So the Manchester derby, which could decide the league's destiny in its 20th season, was among its myriad themes a contest between one club, City, whose owner has invested £1bn, and the other, United, the Glazers have drained of £500m.Margins are fine, City's victory was only 1-0, they lead by just goal difference, two games remain and United, as Roberto Mancini continues to insist, could ... Continue reading →

Pep Guardiola is tossed aloft by Barcelona players after the 2009 Champions League final win against Manchester United. But the pleasure went out of the job for the coach, who is standing down. Photograph: Manu Fernandez/AP Xavi Hernández had no doubts yet even he was surprised. The day Barcelona announced that Pep Guardiola was going to be their new coach, back in the summer of 2008 after the team had just finished the season empty handed, 18 points behind Real Madrid at the top of La Liga, the midfielder was convinced that change would come. But even he could not have expected quite so much change and quite so quickly. Within 12 months, Barcelona had won a unique treble: the league, the Copa del Rey ... Continue reading →

Something strange happened in the dying moments of the semi-final. Fernando Torres had just scored the goal that ended Barcelona's hopes of reaching the European Cup final, his eighth in 11 matches against the Catalans. Defeated by Real Madrid in the league, relinquishing the title, Chelsea had now knocked them out of the Champions League. In four days, Barça had lost virtually everything. But no one left and no one whistled; no one stayed silent. Instead, the chant went up. Soon it was going round right the stadium: Ser del Barça és el millor que hi ha! Being Barça fans is the best thing there is!Not so very long ago, that would have been unthinkable. There was sadness here, but no depression: the pessimism and ... Continue reading →