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Een wilde dolfijn die uit zichzelf de stad opzocht werd door de mensen niet met rust gelaten.
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Social media full of complaints about digital nomads, while waiting list for social housing gets longer
Earlier this month, graffiti appeared on the promenade in Sea Point, on Cape Town’s wealthy Atlantic Seaboard: “Digital nomads go home! Now!”
Social media is full of complaints about the abundance of American and German accents, foreign property buyers, and properties being listed on Airbnb, all of which are being blamed for soaring housing costs.
Continue reading...The film-makers would say they’re making drama, not history. But this is not the moment for yet another second world war film with a heroic myth
The new Peaky Blinders film, The Immortal Man, offers us a character, John Beckett, who is a British Nazi. One of the two founders of Britain’s first Nazi party in 1937, alongside William Joyce, was indeed a man named John Beckett. He had been director of publications for Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists, but that year he fell out with Mosley. I’m Beckett’s biographer. I’m also his son.
So I can tell you authoritatively that he did not bear the smallest resemblance to the Peaky Blinders character. The film Beckett is a villain out of central casting who enjoys killing people, and who says in November 1940 (the year the film is set): “I need to know that you are willing to take part in an act of treason that will decide this war for Germany.”
Continue reading...Marsan is an odd choice for the role of an uptight bank manager compelled to cooperate with robbers in this underpowered take on a real-life bank raid in 2004
Given that this Belfast-set true-crime thriller is based on real-life events from 2004, it sounds like something that might have made a gripping, splashy top-tier feature. But instead this feels underpowered and apologetic, clumsily assembled and blandly directed by Colin McIvor, whose filmography of TV and low-budget comedies doesn’t indicate a particular aptitude for the area. The two main male headliners, Eddie Marsan and Éanna Hardwicke, are fine, although you have to wonder why Marsan, character actor of renown as he may be, was cast instead of a local actor. Was everyone else busy shooting Game of Thrones spinoffs?
Marsan does a pretty good job nailing the Belfast accent, but still he’s a recessive kind of presence and an odd choice for the role of Richard Murray, an uptight bank manager compelled to cooperate with the robbers when his wife Celine (Eva Birthistle) is kidnapped. Murray has to cooperate with one of the bank’s security guards, Barry (Hardwicke, giving the more dynamic performance), who also has a loved one being held captive, to pack up millions of used bank notes and disguise them as rubbish that’s being collected just before Christmas. The bank robbers themselves are a fairly undifferentiated lot, apart from a deliciously skeevy character (JB Moore) who is guarding Barry’s mother (Andrea Irvine). He’s the kind of scumbag that really puts some welly into cleaning the sink after he uses it in his hostage’s home, and not in the sort of way that suggests he’s only worried about fingerprints.
Continue reading...Nostalgia, shame and gossip from Alan Bennett in the fourth instalment of his diaries
In the introduction to this new instalment of Alan Bennett’s diaries, which run from 2016 to 2024, the author worries about what to write: “I have said everything before. At 90 it’s impossible to avoid repetition.” And, indeed, I was halfway through the entries for 2020 before they started to seem familiar. It turns out that I had already reviewed Bennett’s pandemic diaries when they were released as a slim standalone volume in 2022.
Here they are again, then, this time embedded in a much longer stretch of journal-keeping, characterised by Bennett’s customary looping between past and present. The repetition turns out not to matter because the prose is sufficiently layered to take on new meanings as the context shifts. Bennett’s pandemic years read differently now that Covid is in the rearview mirror. The first time round, I got the impression that, devoted to the NHS though he is, the banging of pans on a Thursday evening struck him as a bit daft. Reading the section again, I’m convinced he detested the whole performative palaver.
Continue reading...Arizona State’s head coach has turned around a losing program. Unsurprisingly, much of the discourse on the internet was not based on her leadership skills
In March 2025, the Arizona State women’s basketball team were looking for a coach who could end a drought that had seen them go without a NCAA Tournament appearance – or even a winning season – since 2019-20.
The choice was Molly Miller, a proven and successful head coach at Grand Canyon. Miller had led the Lopes to their first NCAA Tournament appearance and a 32–3 record in her final season with the team – a benchmark for the program and an important accomplishment within the broader scope of college basketball. She soon turned around Arizona State, leading them to a 24-11 record and a first appearance at the NCAA Tournament in six years. (Their season ended in the First Four.)
Continue reading...(Young)
After 2018’s meditative Honey, the Swedish star returns to her trademark skin-tingling electro bangers – but this time she’s unpicking her trademark fixation on romantic love
The self-proclaimed Fembot has always pushed people’s buttons. Robyn might be best known for bringing raw emotion to the dancefloor, but her pop bangers about desire and despair are often spiked with commentary on social programming: “Plug me in and flip some switches,” she once quipped, posing as a sexed-up cyborg with a bloody, beating heart. So it’s not a shock to find the Swedish star in a lab coat on Dopamine, her first single in seven years. The song rushes with glittering, arpeggiated synths, but Robyn, now 46, holds it at arm’s length. “I know it’s just dopamine, but it feels so real to me / I’m tripping on our chemistry,” she muses, taking notes as her synapses tingle. “Is love more than chemicals?” she seems to be asking. Does it matter if it’s not? But this time the song is no social critique – it’s a whole new philosophy.
Sexistential, Robyn’s ninth album, unravels the fixation on romantic love that fuelled her biggest songs. Gone are the soft edges and pulsing, sensual house of her previous album Honey, and back are the sharp electronic sounds of 2010’s Body Talk through a new lens. With long-term collaborator Klas Åhlund and a few familiar faces (including Metronomy’s Joe Mount and Swedish pop royalty Max Martin), Sexistential reimagines Robyn’s discography without romance as a vehicle. The title track is a sub-three-minute case study in her new mentality. Over minimal, jerking 80s house Robyn raps about hooking up while undergoing IVF as a solo parent: “Fuck a single mom, I’m not judgmental,” she winks, cleaving sex from reproduction and nuclear family. Its counterpart is Blow My Mind, a revamp of her billowy 2002 single made psychedelic, faster, sharper – no longer a textbook love song, but a song about loving her young son.
Continue reading...The fishery is regulated but experts say it is wrecking the food chain. Gordon Peake joined a Sea Shepherd mission to observe the giant ships compete for catch
It is bitterly cold on the deck of the Allankay and the bosun, Luca Massari, is checking that none of us are wearing contact lenses before we descend into Antarctic waters. There is a risk, he warns, that lenses will freeze solid over the eyes. Massari himself is prepared for his surroundings. He is wearing thick goggles that make him look like an Olympic ski jumper.
Massari is a burly, heavily tattooed veteran of the environmental organisation Sea Shepherd, which campaigns against exploitating the oceans. His deck team are preparing to launch the ship’s small boat, which Massari will helm. Eight of us are bundled in bright red dry suits, helmets and lifejackets; the average time to survive hypothermia in this wind-whipped water is just five minutes.
The Allankay sailed to Coronation Island from New Zealand to document the krill fishing. Photograph: Alice Bacou/Sea Shepherd
Continue reading...Energy minister Michael Shanks reassures drivers ahead of chancellor’s statement to MPs
Good morning. At lunchtime Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, will give a statement to MPs that will cover what the government is doing, and (more tentatively) might do, in response to the soaring global energy prices caused by the Iran war. After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, also creating a global energy shortage, the Conservative government ended up spending £40bn supporting families and firms with energy bills over the following winter. Reeves’s problem is that she has not got £40bn spare. With spring upon us, and people starting to turn down their central heating, the issue may not seem particularly pressing in many households (although heating oil and petrol prices are already soaring.) But, by the end of this year, this could be the sort of colossal economic crisis that gets remembered for half a century.
As Chris Mason explains in a good preview, Reeves is expected to cover three points. She is expected to confirm that the government wants to give the Competition and Markets Authority new powers to deal with any potention profiteering by oil companies. She will confirm that the government wants to go “further and faster to secure the next generation of nuclear power and to reclaim Britain’s place as a leading nuclear nation” (as the Treasury puts it in its overnight preview).
[Drivers] should do everything as absolutely normal because there is no shortage of fuel anywhere in the country at the moment. We monitor this every single day, I look at the numbers personally. There’s no issue at all with that …
People should go about their business as normal. That’s what the RAC and the AA have said. It’s really important people do that. There’s no shortage of fuel and everything is working as normal.
Look genuinely, people shouldn’t change their behaviour or their habits in the slightest.
Continue reading...AMSTERDAM (ANP) - "Het blijft voor mij heel surrealistisch en verwarrend, omdat feitelijk mijn hele leven nog nooit iemand mij heeft beschuldigd van seksueel grensoverschrijdend gedrag. Nog nooit." Dit zei Ali B dinsdag bij aanvang van het hoger beroep in zijn zedenzaak bij het gerechtshof in Amsterdam.
"Nu zit ik hier, bijna als symbool van de MeToo-discussie. Ik zoek hier een weg in, vanaf het eerste moment dat de berichten mij bereikten", zei hij. De artiest begon ook over de impact van de beschuldigingen, omdat de media-aandacht groot is. "Ik vraag om een eerlijk proces en objectiviteit. Eerder is dat niet goed uitgepakt. In de media ging het vooral over mijn houding en dat heeft allemaal afgeleid van de objectiviteit."
De artiest werd in juli 2024 veroordeeld tot een gevangenisstraf van twee jaar voor verkrachting van een meisje op een schrijverskamp in Heiloo. Hij werd vrijgesproken van verkrachting van zangeres Ellen ten Damme, maar wel veroordeeld voor poging tot verkrachting. De rechtbank sprak de rapper van twee aanrandingen vrij. Het OM gaat tegen alle drie de vrijspraken in beroep. Ali B hoopt vrijgesproken te worden van alle beschuldigingen.
CHISINAU (ANP) - Nachtelijke Russische aanvallen op Oekraïne hebben de belangrijkste hoogspanningslijn tussen Moldavië en Europa verbroken. Dat schrijft de Moldavische president Maia Sandu op X.
De Moldavische publieke omroep meldde eerder op basis van de landelijke netbeheerder dat het zou gaan om de Isaccea-Vulcanesti-lijn. Die stroomverbinding tussen onder meer Oekraïne en Moldavië zou maandagavond zijn beschadigd bij een aanval en sindsdien buiten werking zijn. De netbeheerder heeft opgeroepen spaarzaam om te gaan met stroom.
Hoewel er alternatieven zijn aangewend voor de stroomverbinding, blijft de situatie volgens Sandu precair. Het staatshoofd voegt eraan toe dat de Russische aanvallen op energievoorzieningen een oorlogsmisdaad zijn "en een aanval op ons allen".
Volgens recent onderzoek neemt inmiddels een op de acht Amerikanen afslankmedicijnen zoals Wegovy of Ozempic. Ook in Nederland worden de middelen steeds populairder. Toch temperen experts het enthousiasme.
Medicatie alleen is volgens hen niet voldoende. “De grootste fout die mensen maken, is denken dat het recept zelf de behandeling is”, zegt obesitasspecialist dr. Katherine Saunders. Volgens haar ligt de echte winst in de combinatie van medicijnen met leefstijlverandering, zoals gezonder eten, meer bewegen, voldoende slapen en stress verminderen.
GLP-1-medicijnen, zoals Ozempic, werken door in te grijpen op hormonen in de darmen en hersenen. Ze vertragen de spijsvertering en zorgen ervoor dat je sneller een verzadigd gevoel hebt. Dat helpt om minder te eten en makkelijker gezondere keuzes te maken. Maar zonder aanvullende gedragsverandering blijft het effect beperkt en vaak tijdelijk.
Daarnaast benadrukken deskundigen dat gewichtsverlies niet het enige doel moet zijn. “ Gezondheid gaat niet alleen over wat de weegschaal aangeeft”, zegt endocrinoloog dr. Jody Dushay. Factoren zoals bloedsuiker, bloeddruk, cholesterol en fysieke activiteit spelen minstens zo’n grote rol.
Onderzoek ondersteunt die visie. In klinische studies werden GLP-1-medicijnen altijd gecombineerd met begeleide leefstijlprogramma’s. Een recente studie onder ruim 98.000 Amerikaanse veteranen liet zien dat deelnemers die zowel medicatie gebruikten als meerdere gezonde gewoonten volgden, tot 43 procent minder risico hadden op ernstige hart- en vaatziekten.
Voor optimaal resultaat adviseren experts onder meer voldoende eiwitinname om spierverlies te voorkomen, meer vezels en water en regelmatige lichaamsbeweging. Ook voldoende slaap en stressbeheersing blijken cruciaal.
Tot slot waarschuwen artsen voor mogelijke bijwerkingen, zoals misselijkheid en spijsverteringsklachten. Regelmatige medische begeleiding is daarom essentieel. “Het is belangrijk dat iemand je voortgang en gezondheid blijft monitoren”, aldus Dushay. “Niet alleen een maandelijks recept uitschrijven.”
De conclusie van experts is duidelijk: GLP-1-medicatie kan een krachtig hulpmiddel zijn, maar alleen als onderdeel van een bredere, duurzame aanpak van je gezondheid.
Bron: Science Alert
De allesverwoestende atoomoorlog die zondag op alle continenten is uitgebroken, blijft niet zonder gevolgen. Wereldwijd reageren aandelenbeurzen negatief op de nucleaire apocalyps.
De Nikkei-index in Tokio opende maandagochtend negen procent lager, nadat het nieuws over de verwoesting van het Arabische schiereiland, de grote Russische steden en Nieuw-Zeeland bekend was geworden. Enkele uren later doken ook de Duitse DAX, de Franse CAC 40 en de Britse FTSE diep in het rood. De AEX-index noteerde een verlies van acht procent. Beleggers lijken vooral bezorgd over de gevolgen voor techbedrijven.
Het wachten is nog op de reactie van de Amerikaanse beurzen, zeker nu in de tussentijd de Amerikaanse oostkust van de aardbodem is geveegd en er in New York alleen nog kakkerlakken rondkruipen.
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