Nulla dies sine linea

The cover of Cheryl Cole's debut album, 3 Words, is a sophisticated affair. Shot in black and white by fashion photographer Nick Knight, it shows the pop star bare-shouldered, looking over her shoulder in an elaborately veiled and be-flowered headpiece, the album's title tattooed on her skin. It conveys the right combination of beauty, vulnerability and seduction for Cole's first outing as a solo artist: the bare flesh is both defenceless and erotic, the tattoo suggests a contemporary sheen to her music, while the pout brings a hint of Lolita and the hat a touch of My Fair Lady to the proceedings.

If you were then to transfer your attentions to the cover of Leona Lewis's new album, Echo, you might note a few striking similarities – again, the singer is bare-shouldered with a tilt to the left and, though shot in colour with her hair running sleekly down her back, the pose, a little more sultry, is not dissimilar to Cole's.

Lewis's cover might also prompt you to dig out a copy of Sade's 1992 album Love Deluxe, in which the soul star poses naked to the waist, head in a rapturous tilt, with her long hair also rumpling down her back. Lewis's debut album, Spirit, meanwhile, struck a similar pose, showing The X Factor winner turned to the right, but still looking over her shoulder, lips parted, her chin demurely tilted downward. It shared an uncanny similarity with Shakira's 2001 English-language breakthrough album, Laundry Service, which found the Colombian singer also gazing seductively over her bare shoulder, while, as with Cole's cover, the album title was tattooed at the top of her arm. 

The naked shoulder is no stranger to pop music album covers – it's there on Beyoncé's most recent album I Am . . ., the Supremes' final studio album, Mary, Scherrie and Susaye, and countless others. But the most intriguing element is surely the vogue for female pop stars' album covers to replicate this near-identical pose: standing in near-profile, looking over her (preferably naked) shoulder.

It's nothing new – one of the most famous pictures of Billie Holiday shows her standing just so with an enormous white flower in her hair (again, not dissimilar to Cole's extravagant headpiece). The cover of Nina Simone's 1967 record Silk & Soul also echoes the look, as does Donna Summer's 1977 Once Upon A Time. Certainly, it works as an album pose – not too provocative, while also showcasing the singer's beauty. In the case of a female recording artist, it is also suggestive of a soul-baring intimacy – Cole, for example, nearly titled her album Unveiled, a reference to how exposed she felt without her Girls Aloud bandmates. 

To be photographed straight-on, as Beyoncé, implies a near-aggressive frankness; the side-tilt brings a more demure air and a slightly boudoir feel to the shot. It's a pose reminiscent of Vermeer's Girl With A Pearl Earring, or Rosetti's Proserpine, or even the work of Vladimir Tretchikoff — the Balinese Girl, say. Even the world's most famous female portrait, Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, shows the subject turned slightly to the left, with a good degree of flesh exposed, and a gaze that has long intrigued the art world.

"It's similar to the red-carpet over-the-shoulder pose," explains Guardian photographer Sarah Lee. "Usually people have a better side to be photographed from, and it creates a nice line to have the jawline and the shoulder blade in the shot. It's called the golden section," she adds. "It's the triangular shape that draws the eye around the photograph. It makes for an engaging picture." In Cole's picture, one side of the triangle begins at her right shoulder blade, leads up to the top of her hat, then runs straight downwards, taking in her doe-eyed gaze, her plump lips and her perfect naked shoulder. 

Indeed, one of the most well-known pictures of any woman also replicates this look: consider the portrait of the Queen, printed on banknotes and there on our stamps, turned to one side with her shoulders exposed. Look back to Dorothy Wilding's photograph of the Queen, taken in 1952 following the death of King George VI, and the first official portrait of the new monarch, used as the basis for the Royal Mail stamps from 1952 to 1967. Taken in black and white, she sits in three-quarter profile, with her gaze averted and her chin dipped. It is strikingly not so very different to the the portrait of Cole; an ermine stole rather than the naked shoulder and tattoo, a diamond diadem instead of the striking headpiece, the gaze a touch more regal than come-hither. What better way, one wonders, to proclaim Cheryl Cole Britain's new Princess of Hearts?

Laura Barton, The Guardian, 19.11.09

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/nov/19/cheryl-cole-new-album-cover

C'était le sommet où l'Europe, enfin libérée des lourdeurs institutionnelles, allait se choisir un visage, une voix et insuffler un peu d'air frais. À quelques heures de l'échéance, cela s'annonce plutôt comme un marathon à huis clos, où chacun des Vingt-Sept s'avance masqué et troque une faveur contre une autre.

Lors d'un dîner à Bruxelles, les dirigeants européens doivent désigner jeudi soir le «duo» exécutif dessiné par le nouveau traité de Lisbonne. D'abord le président du Conseil, visage de l'UE. Son autorité semble rétrécir à mesure qu'approche l'heure du choix. Le premier ministre belge Herman Van Rompuy tiendrait la corde, après que Tony Blair s'est laissé distancer, malgré les vivats de Londres. L'Europe a le droit de rêver d'un vrai patron, les Vingt-Sept restent soucieux de leurs prérogatives. Ils préfèrent l'équivalent d'un secrétaire général. Le traité le prive déjà du droit de vote.

La désignation du haut représentant, voix de l'Europe et de sa politique étrangère, est le second dilemme de la soirée. David Miliband, chef du Foreign Office, apparaissaitcomme le favori des Européens pour s'imposer comme l'alter ego de Hillary Clinton, Sergueï Lavrov ou Wang Qishan. Mais c'était cette fois contre l'avis de Gordon Brown. Deux solutions de rechange se dessinent plus nettement que les autres. Massimo d'Alema, ex-ministre italien des Affaires étrangères et opposant que Silvio Berlusconi souhaite peut-être éloigner. Plus récemment Miguel Angel Moratinos, chef de la diplomatie espagnole, est entré en lice. Madrid prendra la présidence tournante de l'UE le 1er janvier. La présidence suédoise, chargée de défricher le terrain, n'a pas eu la tâche facile. Elle doit concilier sur deux noms les intérêts contradictoires des Vingt-Sept, grands contre petits, Ouest contre Est, droite contre gauche.

Ces derniers jours, Stockholm gardait sur les bras une vingtaine de pressentis. Pour ajouter à l'opacité, aucun ne s'est déclaré publiquement. Tous craignent de lâcher la proie (nationale) pour l'ombre (eu­­­ro­pé­enne). La seule à avoir annoncé la couleur est l'ancienne présidente lettone Vera Vike-Freiberga. Elle surfe sur une campagne médiatisée, dans l'espoir de donner un visage de femme à l'Europe. Il n'est pas sûr que le thème retentira vendredi soir à huis clos, avec seulement deux femmes autour de la table : la chancelière Angela Merkel et la présidente lituanienne Dalia Grybauskaite. Après avoir fait monter les enchères autour du traité de Lisbonne, la machine européenne doit maintenant répondre aux attentes qu'elle a soulevées. Le dîner doit durer trois heures, «il pourrait aussi prendre toute la nuit», avertit le premier ministre suédois Fredrik Reinfeldt. Par précaution, la représentation de Stockholm aurait déjà passé la commande du petit déjeuner de demain matin.

«Une caricature de démocratie»

De bonne guerre, l'eurodéputé vert Daniel Cohn-Bendit dénonce «une caricature de démocratie». Plus lourds de conséquences seront les regards lancés depuis Washington, Moscou ou Pékin sur l'Europe des Vingt-Sept si elle s'avère incapable de leur fournir des interlocuteurs à la hauteur de ses ambitions. Une fois la poussière retombée, peut-être faudra-t-il aussi s'interroger sur la manière dont la Suède mais aussi les grandes capitales ont géré ces nominations aussi prévisibles qu'improvisées.

Comme souvent à Bruxelles, un train peut en cacher un autre. Dans un scénario de contagion bien rodé, la sélection du duo de tête a fini par impliquer toute une série de nominations qui s'annoncent en aval, notamment dans l'équipe Barroso II. Si la France et l'Allemagne sont délibérément absentes de la course qui doit se nouer jeudi soir, c'est qu'elles lorgnent activement sur les portefeuilles (économiques) les plus lourds de la future Commission. Quant à l'inflexible soutien du Royaume-Uni à Tony Blair, il peut aussi se révéler comme une précieuse monnaie d'échange, le moment venu.

Jean-Jacques Mével, Le Figaro, 19.11.09

http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/2009/11/19/01003-20091119ARTFIG00016-europe-une-nuit-pour-choisir-un-president-.php

En los días previos al discurso, conservadores y liberales-demócratas acusaron a los laboristas de querer utilizar a la reina Isabel para lanzar su programa electoral. Al final, todo quedó en una quincena de propuestas de ley con mucho acento en la poscrisis económica y con guiños a la izquierda laborista y al electorado más anciano. Sí, con tintes electorales y con pocas posibilidades de que en lo que queda de legislatura puedan aprobarse muchas de las propuestas. Pero si lo que se vio ayer es el programa del Partido Laborista, va a ser un programa muy modesto.

Entre las propuestas presentadas por el primer ministro, Gordon Brown, no hubo sorpresas. La legislación para controlar más de cerca la banca lleva meses en los medios; el proyecto de reducir la deuda pública a la mitad en cuatro años parece más un acto de contrición que un compromiso; la prohibición de las bombas de racimo es una vieja promesa; las propuestas de incrementar las prestaciones para los ancianos que viven solos en casa tiene tintes electorales, ¿pero quién se va a oponer a ello?; la transferencia de más competencias a Escocia y Gales no suscita mayor polémica, y el incremento del poder local para afrontar las inundaciones difícilmente puede suscitar controversia entre la opinión pública.

Brown hacía visibles esfuerzos por sonreír y mantener algún tipo de conversación con el líder conservador, David Cameron. Éste, en cambio, prefirió mantener un semblante de gravedad seguramente exagerado, dado el tono más bien festivo del día.

La trascendencia facial de Cameron quizá podía tener algo que ver con el sondeo publicado la víspera por el prolaborista -aunque no muy pro-Brown- The Guardian. El diario le declaraba "PM in waiting", primer ministro a la espera o primer ministro electo. Y situaba al tory por encima de Brown en todo: con más sustancia, más decidido a la hora de tomar decisiones, más capaz de tomar la decisión adecuada en momentos difíciles. Y mientras un 42% de los entrevistados declaraba que se sentiría complacido con una victoria de Cameron (frente a un 36% que no), un 53% se sentiría enfadado si ganara Brown.

Pero, y es un gran pero, los laboristas han recortado de 17 puntos a 13 la distancia que los separa de los tories, que no consiguen romper la barrera del 42%-45%, cuando el Nuevo Laborismo de Tony Blair estaba en 1997 por encima del 50% en la intención de voto a seis meses vista de las elecciones. Es decir, venía a decir The Guardian sin decirlo, ¿puede el laborismo evitar la derrota si cambia de candidato?

Walter Oppenheimer, El Pais, 19.11.09

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/crispacion/preelectoral/invade/politica/britanica/elpepuint/20091119elpepiint_11/Tes

Perhaps it is how Glorious 39 unfolds around him that makes you never quite trust Nighy as Alexander Keyes, a devoted father and aristocratic Conservative MP in Stephen Poliakoff's sumptuous new thriller about appeasement, set on the eve of the second world war. But perhaps Nighy has a singular talent for projecting unreliability into charming characters. His breakthrough role in The Men's Room in the early 1990s was an adulterous professor, which first attracted his "thinking woman's crumpet" tag. One of his most celebrated theatrical parts was an unreliable academic in Tom Stoppard's Arcadia. He has played an unfaithful PR guru in Gideon's Daughter, the calamari-faced Davy Jones in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies and the undead (vampires; a zombie in Shaun of the Dead) on several occasions. And he was impeccably mannered but ruthless as British diplomat Sir Bernard Pellegrin in The Constant Gardener, for which he earned those reviews hailing his decadent jaw.

He is treasured and instantly recognisable, most particularly since playing ageing rocker Billy Mack in Richard Curtis's Love Actually in 2003, but what is it we don't trust about Nighy? How does he exude such elegant deviousness? "If you are supposed to be villainous and have some sort of agenda I like the idea of delivering that kind of character in a perfectly well-mannered way." He sounds doubtful. "It'll be something I haven't thought of that recommends me for those kind of roles, like my decadent jaw, which I was unaware of. Until you pointed it out. And my sneaky fookin' eyes." He laughs.

Nighy's career steadily expanded from regional theatre in his 20s to national theatre in his 30s, television drama in his 40s and international films – Notes on a Scandal, Valkyrie, The Boat That Rocked – in his 50s. In that time he has wrestled with alcoholism. He stopped drinking aged 42 and once called his "unhealthy relationship with mood-altering chemicals, liquids and otherwise" the "central fact" of his life. But he does not talk about this, or his separation last year from his partner of 27 years, actor Diana Quick. Their daughter, Mary, is also an actor, but he rarely mentions her either.

Instead, he entertains and distracts with stories of his passion for everything from Bob Dylan to Crystal Palace, the British weather and texting. He happily chats about his eccentricities but is not sure about his talent for insincerity, partly because he never watches himself in his films. Despite his enthusiasm for Poliakoff, who wrote the part especially for Nighy, he has not seen Glorious 39, a nightmarish little jewel that glitters with Bafta potential. "I try to never watch. It takes me so long to get over it and I'm always so downcast. I find it really distressing," he says. "Maybe when I'm very old, I'll sit down and watch my earlier work. But it will just depress the hell out of me. I'm sure I'm not alone in this. It's not like I'm some weirdo. You just see how far short it falls from where you might have imagined you were heading. I have a perfectly average skewed perception of myself. We often don't know what we're like. I hope that's the case because otherwise I'll kill myself." He chuckles.

Apart from his decadent jaw, Nighy's most distinctive quality is his voice: sonorous, soft and slightly nasal. He does not enjoy hearing himself, any more than watching himself, but his classless accent is a flexible tool. His mother was a nurse and Nighy grew up in Caterham, Surrey, living above the garage where his father worked. Nighy left school with two O-Levels, ran away to France, twice, the first aged 15, with the romantic and deluded notion of becoming Ernest Hemingway, before a girlfriend persuaded him to apply to Guildford School of Dance and Drama (Prance and Murmur, he called it; he has learned to murmur very well).

"My father had what my mother called improved speech. And I went to grammar school so I probably did adjust my vowel sounds but I haven't reinvented my voice. It amuses me that I play educated people when I didn't have any further education. It's satisfying in the same way as if you play a toff," he spits out the word with relish.

A pot of tea arrives. "Beautiful," he whispers, politely. Nighy gets his manners, and impeccable tailoring, from his father. "My dad had a personal style which was very attractive. It was quite reserved and quite elegant and it was infectious." His father modelled himself on Bing Crosby. "He liked a good sports jacket and a good pair of trousers, with one hand in his pocket and a cigarette in the other. He couldn't understand why anybody would use bad language in front of a woman or a child. He would get up if a woman came in the room. I find myself doing that sometimes and I sit back down again because they are just going to think I'm weird. It is kind of over. Like offering someone your seat on the tube. You can't do it any more. It's just seen as condescending and stupid. Which I understand."

Nighy does not think his manners are exceptional. But he agrees they may help convey insincerity. "In life, if you have an enthusiasm for what they call good manners, sometimes people don't quite believe you. I've had that once or twice before, where they assume you can't be for real. That's useful, particularly for [playing] posh people with sneaky agendas."

I forget to use the strainer and pour Nighy a terrible cup of tea. He protests it is fine. I read he gave up coffee. "I am now back in caffeine management. Somebody said some complete bit of tosh about how it was good for your heart. So I am well back on it," he says with delight. But he advises young actors to stay clear. "One of things I found myself saying was that coffee is the enemy of acting, which is advice I obviously don't take myself. But it is. It slightly removes you from yourself, which is not a good look."

When he is not away filming, he drinks coffee in cafes and strolls around London listening to his iPod (currently playing Love Unlimited by Fun Lovin' Criminals "with the beautiful refrain 'Barry White/Saved my life/Got me back with my ex-wife', which I love"). People say hello all the time. I suggest he puts on a beanie to disguise himself. He sniggers.

"I'm not wearing a beanie. I'm too old for a beanie. I don't know what the cut-off age is for a beanie but it's a long time ago as far as I'm concerned."

A baseball cap?

"No. I'd have to kill myself. There's no need. Because everything is fine. The degree of notoriety I have is fine and easy. There's nothing hysterical about it." If he gets too much attention, he can always hop in a taxi. "I've got a lethal attraction for black cabs," he purrs. "I see an orange light and my arm just goes up."

Nighy does not own a car and I heard he does not own a house these days. Does he rent? Silence. It is like I've opened a door and sent an icy draught over the fun we've been having. I was just intrigued by this idea of you having no possessions, I say. "I don't like owning things. When I was young and in different towns with the theatre I used to walk out of the digs and leave whatever was there. I got a real weirdo buzz from walking out of the door without anything. Just to make you feel very . . ."

Free? "Cool," he finishes. "Well, free and cool. It is worth jettisoning things just for the kick of being empty-handed." And does he own a house now? "I do have my own place, yep," he says, tersely.

All his roaming the streets, listening to his music, makes him seem a loner. "I don't think of myself as a loner. It's true that I walk about on my own. I'm nearly always away from home, so I'm accustomed to going into restaurants with a book. I don't think I'm a loner but then loners don't know, do they?"

Nighy turns 60 next month ("I'm going to even forget you said that") and jokes he will no longer do plays without gags and avoids Shakespeare because it requires baggy pantaloons. "The absence of classical work in my repertoire is due to the fact I can't wear those trousers," he says. "It makes me sound very shallow but I've done some really serious plays in a decent lounge suit."

Although Nighy is almost as reluctant to expose his politics as his personal life ("I have," he pauses as if revealing a dirty secret, "impulses, the same as everybody else") he has undertaken politically infused plays, particularly for David Hare. Nighy has taken roles in Pravda, A Map of the World, Skylight and says starring in the Broadway production of The Vertical Hour, Hare's play about Iraq, was one moment he "wouldn't swap for anything else". Hare is "one of those people like Bob Dylan, I never want him to die. I was thinking the other day, I hope he doesn't die or anything. Because there's gonna be this horrible David Hare-shaped hole in the world like there will be with Bob Dylan. I really dig him, profoundly."

From his track record, though, I would assume Nighy was a disillusioned Labour voter. He lowers his voice. "I vote Labour, obviously. Well, look around you, where else are you going to go?" He raps his knuckles anxiously on the table.

So is his late flowering in international films a reward for all his hard work? Nighy flinches. "I don't believe in equations of that kind. I am not suddenly the greatest actor in the world. I've just been extremely fortunate. And I'm not being coy or modest. More people saw me in Love Actually than had seen me in everything else I had ever done up to that point." That included America, so in casting terms he became "useful" to Hollywood. "That single thing accounts for what they call a late flowering."

Glorious 39 is the second time that Romola Garai has played his on-screen daughter - the first being I Capture The Castle - and the second time "the great Juno Temple", as he calls her, has been his daughter too. What about Mary Nighy? Would he like his real daughter to play an on-screen daughter? "I don't think so, no. I don't think she'd fancy it." His fluency slips from the room like that cold draught again. Would you ever work with her? "I'd love to work with Mary. Maybe one day we will."

After humble digressions – his on-screen marriage to Cate Blanchett in Notes on a Scandal was "an unlikely union that could only happen in the movies"; he doesn't think he could write his autobiography. "It would take me 10 years. It would kill me. Every fucking sentence" - Nighy returns to the discomfort of watching his work. He does not read reviews or interviews either. He doesn't even moan about being misquoted; he blames himself for saying things he regrets. Is it curious to have this degree of self-consciousness at his age? "I don't think so. It's a perfectly normal response to looking at yourself. And then you get older and you [see yourself and] think, 'Jesus, God, he's old, who's that?'" he says. Occasionally, fabulous, fleeting moments arrive when he forgets himself. "In the theatre, there are always a couple of shows where you just forget. Somehow you turn off that part of your mind which is out to get you, the bit that undermines you, the self-conscious bit, and everything happens by magic, everything flows, everything's good, every single action you perform, every word you speak, every time you react to something, it all seems to fly. That's the holy grail."

Patrick Barkham, The Guardian, 18.11.09

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/nov/19/bill-nighy-poliakoff-glorious-39

Fils de militaire, destiné à suivre la carrière de son père, Yannick Haenel, né en 1967, fait ses études au Prytanée militaire de La Flèche, dont il "s'échappe" en lisant Rimbaud. Il gagne ensuite Paris, où ce "déserteur dans l'âme" fonde avec François Meyronnis, la revue Ligne de risque. Figures tutélaires de ce professeur de lettres, Louis-René Des Forêts et Philippe Sollers.

Après Les Petits Soldats (La Table ronde, 1996), il publie chez Gallimard, dans la collection de Philippe Sollers, "L'Infini", Introduction à la mort française, son deuxième roman (2001). Suivront Evoluer parmi les avalanches (2003), Poker, livre d'entretiens avec Philippe Sollers, cosigné avec François Meyronnis, tout comme Prélude à la délivrance. Mais c'est avec le somptueux Cercle (Gallimard, "L'Infini", 2007) qu'il élargit son public et acquiert une belle notoriété en remportant le prix Décembre et le prix Roger-Nimier.

Déjà récompensé en ce début d'automne par le prix Fnac, Jan Karsky est un roman troublant et atypique dans sa forme sur la mémoire du mal. En effet, pour retracer le parcours de ce résistant polonais, messager de la résistance polonaise auprès du gouvernement en exil à Londres, qui tenta d'alerter les alliés sur la Shoah, Yannick Haenel bâtit son livre en trois parties : une première, inspirée du témoignage de Jan Karsky dans le film Shoah, de Claude Lanzmann ; une deuxième, fondée sur les Mémoires de Karsky (Histoire d'un Etat secret). Enfin, une troisième partie proprement fictionnelle – sans doute la plus belle – où, sous la forme d'un monologue, Haenel revient sur la complicité "passive" des Alliés dans les grandes tragédies du XXe siècle et l'insondable question du mal. Avec, en filigrane tout au long de ce livre magistral, une question : qui témoigne pour le témoin ?

One hundred years ago today, a crowd gathered at the Royal Albert Hall in London to be told of atrocities in the Congo. Luminaries such as Arthur Conan Doyle, the writer, and the Archbishop of Canterbury were joined in their public outrage by scores of peers and MPs. The demonstration was the culmination of an extraordinary campaign by a former shipping clerk, Edmund Morel, to reveal the truth about King Leopold's Congo Free State.

This morning, a new generation of activists will gather at the same venue, in Kensington, west London, to highlight the continued suffering in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. The demonstration will attempt to redraw a link, established forcefully in 1909, between the actions of the rich world and the fate of millions of people in a distant stretch of central Africa.

As the Archbishop argued a century ago: "We know, that, in whatever way it has come about, a great wrong has been done and is now being done, to a helpless race in a vast area of the earth, that we are ourselves in part responsible for."

The exploitation of a century ago took the form of massacres, slavery and plunder under the veil of free trade. Today eastern Congo is routinely described as the "world's worst humanitarian crisis", beset by the aftermath of civil war and genocide and an epidemic of rape, where mineral riches are the modern counterparts to the stolen ivory and rubber of old. Both have led to mass killings: late 19th-century estimates start at 5 million people, while estimates from the 1990s onwards start at 4 million people.

The renewed focus on injustice in central Africa would have pleased the late E D Morel, who was the prototype for today's investigative journalists and human rights activists.

Morel was the son of a French trader and an English Quaker who went to work for a Liverpool shipping firm in 1891. He oversaw his firm's business with Leopold II, King of the Belgians, and his trade with what was then touted as a visionary alternative to conventional colonies. Congo Free State was a neutral sovereignty but run by a holding company, of which Leopold was the sole shareholder and chairman. It was in effect the world's only colony claimed by one man.

According to his own PR machine, the "philanthropic monarch" had defeated slave traders there, and he was feted for investing his fortune in good works for Africa.

But Morel was unconvinced. As a French speaker, he was sent to Belgium to supervise the unloading of the Congo ships, and he noticed they arrived heaving with ivory and rubber, but would return to Africa with only guns, ammunition and soldiers.

Adam Hochschild describes Morel's eureka moment in his brilliant history book King Leopold's Ghost: "As Morel watches these riches streaming into Europe with almost no goods being sent to Africa to pay for them, he realises there can be only one explanation for their source: slave labour."

Taking up his pen, the clerk becomes first a journalist, then a full-time campaigner starting the first great human rights movement of the 20th-century.

"Seldom has one human being," Hochschild writes, "impassioned, eloquent, blessed with brilliant organising skills – managed to put one subject on the world's front pages for more than a decade."

It was a titanic struggle. The resourceful Belgian King hired his own publicity machine to dispute his critic's conclusions.

Morel would draw literary greats from Mark Twain to Conan Doyle to his cause, as well as a young Joseph Conrad who travelled to the Congo to find "the vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience".

Daniel Howden, The Independent, 19.11.09

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/spirit-of-the-past-inspires-congo-campaign-1823230.html

Le titre Miss Météores a un côté ­éphémère. Est-ce votre manière de conjurer le sort ?

Peut-être, mais il ne faut pas oublier que lorsque le météorite percute la terre, il s'ancre à jamais. Il fait son trou. J'aime bien jouer sur les deux versants d'une interprétation.

Comme le fait d'afficher à la fois un certain aplomb et d'assumer une évidente fragilité ?

Tout à fait. Sur les autres albums, je m'efforçais de cacher cette fragilité, je me réfugiais derrière des personnages. J'ai été un peu maltraitée à l'école et j'ai appris à me construire une carapace. L'idée était de montrer le côté clair de la force en gardant pour moi le côté obscur. Mais pas question pour autant de faire pleurer les gens. Mon but, avant tout, est d'être divertissante. Surtout dans mon métier.

Quelle a été votre réaction quand Juliette Gréco vous a demandé de lui écrire des chansons ?

En fait, c'est son éditeur qui m'a appelée. J'ai eu un moment de panique car je sais qu'elle est très exigeante. Je me suis lancée. J'en ai fait deux en me disant que, si elle n'aimait pas la première, je sortirais la deuxième. Elle a gardé les deux ! C'était magique, même si elle m'a dit que ce que j'avais écrit pour elle ne lui ressemblait pas. Mais elle aimait. C'est une personne terriblement moderne et libre.

Vous allez donner un nombre impressionnant de concerts jusqu'à la fin de l'année. Comment tenez-vous physiquement ?

Je ne suis pas une grande sportive, mais j'ai appris l'endurance sur la tournée de la Femme Chocolat. En même temps, il faut relativiser. Par le passé, j'ai fait les vendanges en me réveillant chaque matin le dos cassé. J'ai aussi nettoyé les sanitaires d'un camping. Alors, gagner ma vie en faisant le métier que j'aime, en rencontrant le public qui m'a portée jusqu'ici, c'est une pression que je gère sans problème… !

Côté cœur

On connaît bien la chanteuse, on connaît peut-être moins la femme de cœur qui, avec son frère Toan, a produit un mini-album avec des artistes burkinabés et français : Faso Kombat, Obscur Jaffar, Smockey, Taama J… Les titres, qui mêlent hip-hop et musique traditionnelle, sont téléchargeables gratuitement sur le site fasoburkina.com (déjà disque d'or). En échange, chaque internaute est invité, s'il le souhaite, à faire un don à l'association Lutt'opie. Les fonds récoltés permettront la reconstruction d'une école à Diapaga, une petite ville du Burkina Faso, dans la province de la Tapoa.

Propos recueillis par Annie Grandjanin, Le Figaro, 18.11.09

http://www.lefigaro.fr/musique/2009/11/18/03006-20091118ARTFIG00044-olivia-ruiz-je-veux-etre-divertissante-.php

Tras nueve años en España, ahora lidera la línea de investigación Precorr (dedicado a analizar como se puede prevenir la corrupción) del Centro en Gobernación del Riesgo, vinculado a la UAB.

Junto al profesor Ramon J. Moles, director general de la fundación para los Estudios de Prevención y Seguridad Integral, detalla cómo nace la corrupción, cuáles son sus caldos de cultivo y hace propuestas para combatirla.

-¿Qué percepción tienen los ciudadanos de la corrupción?
Ramon Moles (RM): Vivimos en un país en el cual ahora resulta que el gran problema son estos elementos de corrupción, pero donde a la vez se tolera o se cree aceptable que grandes entidades deportivas como los clubes de fútbol mueven ingentes cantidades de dinero a partir de contratos televisivos... El país que se plantea como ya hace alguien en Cataluña -y en el caso italiano ya es obvio- que el presidente de un club puede ser presidente del gobierno tiene un problema de percepción.

Endrius Cocciolo (EC): Unos estudios han demostrado que si se pregunta a la gente si cree que hay corrupción, casi todo el mundo dice que sí. Pero si se pregunta cuáles son los problemas del país, normalmente no sale que la corrupción sea algo importante. Otro estudio tomaba en consideración 133 casos de sucesos relacionados con la corrupción y comprobaba que, en las siguientes elecciones locales, ganaba el mismo alcalde o grupo en el 70% de los casos. La gente predica mucho sobre la corrupción, pero en el momento de la elección política no lo ve como un problema o lo considera secundario.

-Mucha gente considera normal defraudar a Hacienda. ¿Comprendemos a los corruptos?
RM: Estamos en país latino, de cultura de organización jerárquica canónica, donde el que está debajo deposita su confianza en el que está arriba para todo, incluso para excluirse el mismo de su responsabilidad. Todo es culpa del que manda. En el mundo protestante esto es distinto, la responsabilidad del individuo es mucho más directa y asumida. Hay más mecenazgo, más contribución a hacienda y un nivel de responsabilidad política mucho más directa.

-¿Esta mentalidad latina favorece la corrupción?
-Es difícil encontrar un país latino con sistemas de listas abiertas y elección directa de cargos. El sistema de partidos es un mundo cerrado, donde se ha llegado a profesionalizar la política. Ya no es una vocación sino una profesión. Además, algunos sujetos logran vivir de un modo que fuera de la política no podrían hacer. Todo esto se convierte en un auténtico caldo de cultivo de sistemas de beneficios irregulares. La percepción de la corrupción es que todo funciona mientras no se sepa, pero en el momento que hay un escándalo...

-¿Cómo se previene la corrupción?
RM: El código penal es un instrumento para reprimir la comisión de delitos, mientras que los códigos éticos hacen referencia y apelación a la moral individual. Entre uno y otros hay una zona gris muy amplia en la que hay que introducir las buenas prácticas. Tienen que ser medidas preventivas: evitaremos el problema si este no se produce. Castigar lo mal hecho está claro que también hay que hacerlo, pero del otro modo nos ahorraríamos mucho dinero y dolores de cabeza.

-¿Qué medidas concretas se podrían tomar?
RM: Cambiar elementos estructurales como la representación política en las administraciones y, por descontado, introducir las listas abiertas. No porqué sea un sistema más o menos democrático, sino porque esto quitaría a los partidos políticos su monopolio en la confección de cuadros de comando de poder. Este es normalmente el caldo de cultivo de casos de nepotismo, etcétera.

-¿Qué más?
RM: Establecer una práctica retributiva de los cargos públicos que tendiera a que una persona cuando accediera a un cargo político mantuviera la retribución de la ocupación que tenía anteriormente. Ni más ni menos. No se puede pretender acceder a la política para cobrar más de lo que se cobraba antes. Que uno gane lo mismo cuando es alcalde que cuando es carpintero.

-La financiación de los partidos es un foco de opacidades.
RM: Para que la financiación de los partidos políticos sea transparente, este tiene que ser declarada y además tiene que poder ser fiscalizada y auditada. Pero no sólo la financiación del aparato político, sino también la de las empresas que pertenecen a los partidos políticos o trabajan para ellos. Todavía hoy, los presupuestos de algunos parlamentos son secretos. No sabemos en qué gastan el dinero los parlamentos, que son el órgano depositarios de la soberanía popular. No sabemos qué cobran de dieta los diputados…

-¿El boom inmobiliario ha alimentado la corrupción?
EC: La actividad inmobiliaria es una fuente de riqueza que puede gustar o no, pero esto no significa que sea ilegal. Donde hay mucha actividad económica pueden darse sucesos delictivos, pero no se puede identificar una actividad económica con una actividad delictiva.

-¿Porqué hay tantos casos de corrupción vinculados al sector inmobiliario?
EC: Se han unido muchos capitales con una competencia de la administración que tiene márgenes discrecionales...

MR: ...y las plusvalías del tráfico de bienes inmuebles no eran proporcionales al beneficio económico que esto podía producir. Esto ha producido una llegada de dinero a este sector porque está menos gravado tributariamente.

-¿Porqué están aflorando ahora estos casos de corrupción?
EC: Es un proceso desde hace años. Marbella no es de este año ni del pasado.

MR: Hay casos en los que se hace muy patente que las ineficiencias administrativas y de control lo que han hecho es facilitar determinadas prácticas hasta que ha llegado un momento en que ya era insostenible y han estallado.

-¿Se refiere al caso Palau?
MR: En el patronato del Palau de la Música había más de cien personas, algunas de ellas expertas en gestión de patrimonio. Además, había tres administraciones involucradas: el Ajuntament de Barcelona, la Generalitat y el Ministerio de Cultura. Cada una de ellas con su sistema de control, intervención previa y auditoría posterior. Todo esto ha fallado y si ha fallado es porque ha habido un nivel de gestión ineficiente y mecanismos ineficientes. Más allá de la pericia o de la astucia de los autores de lo sucedido, es obvio que ha habido sistemas de control que han fallado. Ahora el foco está puesto única y exclusivamente sobre los autores, pero aquí ha habido una serie de cooperadores necesarios en este contexto.

-¿Qué factores favorecen la aparición de la corrupción?
EC: La corrupción tiene sus condiciones básicas en la disponibilidad de capitales y en la discrecionalidad de los poderes político-administrativos. Cuando las administraciones tienen un margen de elección bastante abierto por el que fluyen capitales, se dan las circunstancias para que haya negocio ilícito.

-¿Hay que introducir más controles?
MR: El problema puede venir ahora por la típica reacción latino-mediterránea: prohibámoslo todo, compliquémoslo todo. ¿Pero porqué una fundación vinculada a un partido político no puede recibir dinero de una empresa? Prohibirlo significaría que lo hagan clandestinamente. Mejor hacerlo de forma transparente. Ahora todas las medidas van dirigidas a clandestinizar estos comportamientos, el típico problema de la economía sumergida española. Esto dificulta mucho más el control y es absurdo.

-Según la lista de corrupción de Transparencia Internacional España ha bajado cuatro puestos en el último año.
EC: Si leemos sólo los datos y los números, vemos que España entre 2000 y 2009 ha pasado de la posición 20 a la 32 y ha pasado de la nota 7 a 6,1. Pero es una visión muy esquemática. En realidad, lo que ha habido es más controles, más investigación y más denuncias. Y esto es positivo.

Joel Albarrán Bugié, La Vanguardia, 19.11.09

http://www.lavanguardia.es/ciudadanos/noticias/20091119/53827227049/el-pais-que-cree-que-el-presidente-de-un-club-de-futbol-puede-gobernar-tiene-un-problema-barcelona-g.html

How wise is it for a brand new art centre in a major provincial city to open its doors with a show by David Hockney? Isn't the Hockney story – and aren't Hockney's works in general – just too well-known to deserve yet another outing?

In part this must be true. We know too much about Hockney. We've seen too much of Hockney. There have been several shows devoted to his works which have opened in the past two or three years, including an exhaustive – far too exhaustive – survey of his portraiture at the National Portrait Gallery, a show of his recent landscape paintings at Annely Juda in London, together with a major museum show in Swabia.

The difficulty in part has to do with Hockney himself. He has always pushed himself forward as a big part of the story of his art. He still does. It's the tale of the gutsy, cussed Yorkshire laddo with the dyed blonde hair who stormed London at the beginning of the 1960s, and then rapidly reinvented himself as a cool painter of Californian pool-side languor with a special homoerotic charge. The fact is we always seem to know what he has been doing, and in the relatively recent past he has been as much partially failing as partially succeeding. Do you remember those awful brown paintings of his dogs? Or those weak re-paintings of Picasso? Why in heaven's name did Picasso need re-painting anyway? And we can't forget them very easily either because the abiding presence of Mr Hockney is always helping to draw our attention back to them.

So why Hockney again, and what's new about this show? The new director answers the first question without a second's hesitation. A new gallery such as this one can't afford to take any chances and, well, Michael, who is as well-known as Hockney? Isn't he our first near-guaranteed crowd-pleasing, crowd-pulling blockbuster? There's a bit more to it than that though, thankfully. This show brings back into the spotlight not only some of those first major encounters with California, but it also cleverly draws our attention to the way in which Hockney himself was responding, in his very earliest paintings, to the fashionable art of his time, to minimalism and abstract expressionism, for example. Hockney is not by instinct an abstract painter – he never has been – but he makes us aware of the ways in which various kinds of austere abstraction work on us. Then, quite suddenly, as if blowing a raspberry – Hockney has always been very good at blowing raspberries – he has a bit of a joke at its expense. And he often does it as a way of saying, with quite wilful and undaunted pride, that he is a gay man in a country where homosexual acts would remain illegal for at least another half decade.

So you can read many of these early works as quite pointed acts of political defiance, not only finding a new way to paint modern, but also a new way to paint and point up a message. So some of these very early works, Going to be a Queen for Tonight (1960), for example, have a wonderful raw energy which seems to draw on the muscular excess of gestural painting, but also lightens it, and even pokes fun at it, by adding bits and pieces of text or unexpected splashes of colour, and all this seems to be saying – more shouting than saying – that, yes, there is more to life than a kind of self-enclosed spirituality.

And so, much to my surprise, to find myself looking at Hockneys such as these proved to be something quite special after all. The difficulty proved to be that after the brilliance of those early years, he then had to live with himself for the rest of his life, and that kind of thing is always difficult.

Michael Glover, The Independent, 19.11.09

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/david-hockney-1960ndash1968-a-marriage-of-styles-contemporary-nottingham-1823091.html