Club’s ruthless approach was always at odds with their public image and this inglorious story has further to run
There is no episode in English football’s history that even resembles a precedent for the epic Manchester City disciplinary drama, which encapsulates the modern game at breaking point. Here was a grand, stoic old club, taken over in 2008 by Abu Dhabi royalty and mega-funded to imperious success, then crowned serial champions by a league simultaneously pursuing charges of monstrous financial cheating.
On Friday sources confirmed that saga, in which Pep Guardiola’s expensively constructed City teams won five Premier League titles and the Champions League during the years since the investigation began in December 2018, culminated in guilty findings on almost all of more than 100 charges.
Continue reading...Even Jacob Rees-Mogg pushes back on defining Englishness in exclusively ethnic terms. But the endurance of this discourse is still deeply troubling
Can you be English and non-white? It’s a question that keeps stubbornly resurfacing in our political discourse.
Last weekend, the former prime minister Rishi Sunak gave his view in a column in the Times, arguing that national identity should not be turned into a DNA test. After leaving office, Sunak, the UK’s first prime minister of colour, was subject to claims by a prominent podcaster that he was not English because he was a “brown-skinned Hindu”. Reflecting on this, Sunak described it as a “reverse Tebbit test”: the sociological concept measuring the loyalty of immigrants – and their children – in the UK depending on which cricket team they supported in international matches. “Once we say that this or that person isn’t really English or British because they are not white,” he wrote, “then we are on a very slippery slope. Some people will argue that English is an ethnic identity and British a civic identity. Though if you think those nuances are heard by most people, I fear you are being rather – perhaps even wilfully – naive.”
Jason Okundaye is an assistant Opinion editor at the Guardian
Continue reading...Sharon Horgan takes on divorce in a new series about life as a single fiftysomething, while Brad Pitt makes his way across Alaska with a loyal hound. Here’s the pick of the week’s culture, taken from the Guardian’s best-rated reviews
Continue reading...When her parents waved her off to study in England they hoped it would be a fresh start the 16-year-old needed after struggling with her mental health in Hong Kong. Instead, 10 months later, she was dead. What went so wrong?
As a young teen, one of Luna Wong’s favourite things to do was to walk to a bridge near her home in Hong Kong and sit there for a while, listening to the traffic and the water below, looking out at the lights and the activity of the city. She had a particular way of observing the world, which she expressed through photography. Her pictures were mostly landscapes, ordinary corners of Hong Kong, but she could spot an image nobody else would have seen in the same place. She was an inquisitive kid who enjoyed making people laugh, and was deeply interested in the world around her. Then in 2019, when she was 13, political unrest in Hong Kong, swiftly followed by Covid lockdowns, shrank that world to the size of her bedroom. For a prolonged period, Luna barely left her family’s flat. School became a screen; friends were only accessible virtually. She stopped sleeping properly, started having panic attacks, and was diagnosed with depression and anxiety.
When the world opened up after Covid, Luna was too changed to step easily back into it. She was often so anxious she couldn’t attend school, and fell seriously behind. Her psychiatrist prescribed antidepressants, anti-anxiety medication and sleeping pills. Later, ADHD medication and an anti-psychotic drug were added to the mix. This heavy combination of prescription drugs left her lethargic in the day – though still often awake at night – and caused weight gain, which distressed her. But Luna retained her curious streak. Keen to understand her own issues better, she read about psychology, ordering textbooks to teach herself about the human mind. When her friends had problems, she offered advice, and dreamed of becoming a psychologist. But it was hard to see how this would be possible as she struggled to attend school.
Continue reading...Outgoing secretary Lonnie Bunch rejects claims the institution is unpatriotic, telling audience ‘You cannot understand all without illuminating the dark corners’
Lonnie Bunch, the outgoing secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, has defended the organisation against political interference, insisting that telling the unvarnished and complex truths of history is an act of “great love” for the country.
Speaking on Friday at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, Bunch received a standing ovation from hundreds of audience members and rejected claims that the institution’s staff or exhibitions were unpatriotic.
Continue reading...Right On Photography has added a photo to the pool:
Overhead shot of the pedestrian and boat bridge at Sea Rocks. The water colours are awesome