Roadkill | Reviews | guardian.co.uk Film

 Posted on April 6, 2024  |  3 minutes  |  537 words  |  Valentine Belue

As if to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of Spielberg's road-rage classic, Duel, John Dahl (director of the neo-noir Red Rock West and The Last Seduction ) returns to form with Roadkill, a picture released in the States under the more obviously ironical title Joy Ride. This is an almost deliberately unoriginal film that would have thrilled Jean Renoir, who believed that all good work was borrowed from someone else. 'There ought to be a Nobel Prize for plagiarism,' he contended. [Read More]

Sex symbols: what does a blue hankie in your left back pocket mean?

 Posted on April 6, 2024  |  5 minutes  |  860 words  |  Kary Bruening

PhotographyHal Fischer took the language of the instruction manual and applied it to the jocks and leathermen of gay San Francisco in the 70s. He explains the code In one of the first photographs Hal Fischer composed for Gay Semiotics, we see two sets of male buttocks, each clad in high-cut, form-fitting Levi’s. One sports a blue bandana in the left back pocket, which, according to the overlaid text, “indicates that the wearer will assume the active or traditional male role during sexual contact”. [Read More]

The boy who didn't come back from heaven: inside a bestseller's 'deception'

 Posted on April 6, 2024  |  15 minutes  |  3193 words  |  Aldo Pusey

Religion This article is more than 9 years oldThis article is more than 9 years oldAlex Malarkey co-wrote a bestselling book about a near-death experience – and then last week admitted he made it up. So why wasn’t anyone listening to a quadriplegic boy and a mother who simply wanted the truth to be heard? When he wrote a blogpost in 2012, complaining about the explosively popular genre of books about near-death experiences, the evangelical writer and editor Phil Johnson did not know what he was getting into. [Read More]

Weather tracker: dry September in parts of Europe leaves rivers running low | Rivers

 Posted on April 6, 2024  |  2 minutes  |  260 words  |  Kary Bruening

Weather trackerRiversAnalysisWeather tracker: dry September in parts of Europe leaves rivers running low Theo Gkousarov for MetDeskConcern as significantly lower level of the Rhine could have big impact on transportation River levels in parts of Europe have once again reached significant lows after conditions that were drier and warmer than normal across central and western parts of Europe through September and the first week of October. In Germany, levels for the River Rhine have been steadily lowering since the end of September and are now running well below the normal level of 1. [Read More]

When slavery isn't such a black-and-white issue

 Posted on April 6, 2024  |  4 minutes  |  754 words  |  Kary Bruening

The ObserverFictionReviewStereotypical views of the master-slave relationship are exploded in a clever and satirical novel by a British-Nigerian writer Few people who read Alex Haley’s 1976 novel Roots, which told of his African slave ancestor Kunta Kinte, will forget the shock of those descriptions of the slave ships and the brutality of the plantations, nor the shame and anger that accompanied it. But how do you maintain that shock over atrocities 200 years old without people feeling they have heard the story before? [Read More]

Woman killed by falling Christmas tree in Belgian market square | Belgium

 Posted on April 6, 2024  |  2 minutes  |  224 words  |  Aldo Pusey

Belgium This article is more than 1 month oldWoman killed by falling Christmas tree in Belgian market squareThis article is more than 1 month oldTwo people injured as 20-metre high tree collapses next to Christmas market A woman was killed and two people injured by a large Christmas tree that fell over during stormy weather in the Belgian town of Oudenaarde, authorities said on Friday. Security camera footage on Belgian news media showed a brightly lit 20-metre (66ft) high Christmas tree slowly leaning over, then collapsing next to a Christmas market in the town, east of Brussels, on Thursday as a merry-go-round turned in the historic market square. [Read More]

Carnivorous plants: so you thought the triffids were make-believe

 Posted on April 5, 2024  |  2 minutes  |  415 words  |  Chauncey Koziol

Aldrovanda vesiculosa: 10 times quicker than a Venus flytrap. Photograph: Paul Starosta/Getty ImagesAldrovanda vesiculosa: 10 times quicker than a Venus flytrap. Photograph: Paul Starosta/Getty ImagesThe fivePlantsA guide to flora with a hunger for flesh – and the intriguing and elaborate ways in which they get hold of itWaterwheel plantScientists at the University of Freiburg in Germany have for the first time characterised the snapping movement of this rare aquatic carnivorous plant, found in wetlands around the world. [Read More]

David Shariatmadari | The Guardian

 Posted on April 5, 2024  |  1 minutes  |  45 words  |  Valentine Belue

His lyrical novels about exile and loss enjoy critical acclaim but modest sales. Now he’s Zanzibar’s second most famous son – and £840,000 richer. The writer talks about racism on British buses, Priti Patel, and why books have to entertain

Published: 11 Oct 2021

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Doctors using Snapchat to send patient scans to each other, panel finds | Data protection

 Posted on April 5, 2024  |  3 minutes  |  626 words  |  Aldo Pusey

Data protection This article is more than 6 years oldDoctors using Snapchat to send patient scans to each other, panel findsThis article is more than 6 years oldReport says NHS clinicians sending scans using photo messaging app is ‘clearly insecure, risky and non-auditable’ Doctors are using Snapchat to send patient scans to each other, a panel of health and tech experts has found, concluding the “digital revolution has largely bypassed the NHS”. [Read More]

For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on My Little Pain by Victoria MacKenzie review a pocket epic

 Posted on April 5, 2024  |  4 minutes  |  674 words  |  Valentine Belue

Book of the dayFictionReviewThis electrifying debut compares the spiritual adventures of Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwich This is an extraordinary novel about two extraordinary women, the books they wrote and how those books survived. In 1934, while looking for a ping pong ball in the house of Lieutenant Colonel William Butler-Bowdon, a guest stumbled upon the only complete manuscript of The Book of Margery Kempe. Butler-Bowdon threatened to throw it on the bonfire, saying “then we may be able to find ping pong balls and bats when we want them”. [Read More]