Delayed Gratification Issue Six by The Slow Journalism Company

T TAIWO

K MONOLAS

J GRIMMER

J VERTONGHEN

Aberdeen AC Milan AEK Athens

Ajax

I BANGOURA

M NAGY

Al Ahly Al Nasr

Arsenal

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A CISSOKHO S DANN T HENRY A MARIAPPA R MORRISON A MUSA L PODOLSKI N POWELL L SHAW K RICHARDSON J VERTONGHEN E FRIMPONG R MYAICHI

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Ever

A BACINOVIC L BARRIOS A CARROLL R KEANE S PIENARR E STEVENS D BENT J COLLINS

Crewe

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Crawley

Crystal Palace

Aston Villa

Cliftonville

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Barcelona

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SE JOUR J BE AU ON D N REDM L G EWEL L R ID

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Benfica

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Bl a

A A BOTIO N NS A J O HLSS O N M O B ORR STE ODE R A M S SUTTE S W DRE K AN S DAN N T ILET N J HO E E LS Z I R N N’ZO N A S B AM CS RA OU F NG IOU S I BA AM D LLI N OS I R C O NT N M B D S SA ZEA H I O AD C G D McF YAI EAM L L A K M R E R T R D AH SO Z I LL M W AH GC

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S ALLAN E BU DD LE N L DO NOVAYLE K DO D GI BS ON AU G HOARVI C N JE LA LO U S KA AS OL K M ON M USA A Y M NAGHA O N O N UNAAR S PIEH O D ES R J AH ILL T C SAHA L

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M J D E VA M R O H BEL DY NS E ON OR A

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E ABIDAL N BITON A CARROLL

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Lyon

Liverpool

D SITU

E ABIDAL D BA L BARRIOS D BENT L CASTAIGNOS S DANN J DEFOE A HLEB J IBE M ISLA N JELAVIC M KRASIC M MARIN J MARTINEZ V MOSES N REDMOND S SESSEGNON J C TEIXEIRA C TEVEZ D TEXEIRA VAN WOLFSWINKEL W ZAHA

E HAZARD

Lens Lille

J HOWSON

D CISS E M ZARATE

Lazio

Leeds United

D BECKHA L DO NOVANM R KEANE

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J MAR TI N EZ

E Y FALQELIA V IAQU INUE TA M KRAS IC

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Through the transfer window We plot every footballer linked in the press to a Premier League move in January’s transfer window. Of the 253 predictions that were made only 21 came true.

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R LM N O D RIC G DKRANJ J D OS SA CAR EFO NTO S E SB AS S M ON G J ZAR B VERT ATE J T UVIN I O N G H EN C OM L SAM KI N H SAH BA S R RO A V M N E L DALL M O S E EG M MA SES N A T M RI M KR AN D N J J KR A U L ZU K IC I M SI C EN EZ

NAA

M ISL

S PIE

M MARIN

Watfo rd

M SO RD ELL A MARIA PPA

M U CH EBO A MU SA

West Bromwich Albion

Werder Bremen

West Ham J TOMKINS

P ODEMWINGIE P WHITTINGHAM L RIDGEWELL P POGREBNYAK N MAYNARD K AND REW S ALLAN S

J VERHOEK N MAYNARD A HAMMILL J BEAUSEJOUR

V MOSES

Wigan

Wolfsburg H RODALLEGA

M MANDZUKIC S KYRGIAKOS

Wolves A HAMMILL K DOYLE N MAYNARD P LOVENKRANDS E JONSSON E FRIMPONG L BEST S BASSONG

Unattached

Young Boys of Bern Wycombe Wrexham C OBENG

J IBE

S SUTTER

P SCHOLES M OLSSSON

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TT LE OI O E J H A N S LQ U B E L E G FA EM O Y D M IA NS M DA LLI L L CO I L AM J CAH KH G BEC EN D ALL J N N SO LLE J A SITU U R D S D SIG NG RAN G O B E AC H Y C McE N E LL J DON N R GNO N SSE DSO S SE ICHARRA K RZAM O B OSES KO S V M YR G IA E S K BR ID G W

Jan

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INS D CO LLH EBO M U C G EWELL L RI D GA M MAI ETT J HO ILM PBELL DJ CA

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SWIN KEL VAN WO LF J C TEIXEIRA

A BOTIA L SHAW

M MAIGA

E STEVENS WILLIAN B UVIN I HEN RIQU E GANSO

D DE RO D PIZARRSSI O J VERH

J JI M EN

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S MU J AN G NTARI EL PO ZO BO DJ C R R B ZA AM PBEL T TA M O RA L IW CT O C S EVEZ R S AM BA H R ANTA S PIEO DALL CRUZ NA EGA N P O N U AR S M O D EM O HA V U NT WIN A M M OSE ARI G IE S c F G A MA REG A JOH CHE OR H H LE NSO DA D EN R B N S D D RO I Q U E D I GB J CI AKI A T CO SSE TE W CA LLI S B H I L NS AL BAS RI D G L EX SO E NG

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Southampton

Sochaux Shamrock Rovers Shakhtar Donetsk Sao Paulo Santos

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S IAM Pa lerm acos I LL TT R W NNE Pa mpi am E y h U RB RA Ol tting OA VI C GH INO No AC ich I D IS AB OS rw OR RD No VT FO N SO OW ETT J H BE N N R PB

Napoli

New York Red Bul

Nancy MS Ashdod Marseille

Manchester United

Manchester City

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TE N DS C TIO KR A VEN P LORU L T K ST L BE A D B AHA W Z M KINS Z J TO D RIG U E J RO O RRISO N R M IAPPA A MARU INTA V IAQ E ELIA L DU NK BA CI SS E P DE MOKHO A CISS OLL A CARR

T REAR N T HE NRY

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M HAMSIK E CAVANI

N BILTON

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W ROONEY P POGBA R MORRISON F MACHEDA D GIBSON M BIRAM DIOUF G XHAKA J VERTONGHEN VAN WOLFSWINKEL V TOROSIDIS C TIOTE P SCHOLES L MODRIC F LAMPARD N GAITAN L DAMIAO N CLYNE G CAHILL

C TEVEZ R SANTA CRUZ N ONUOHA

W BRIDGE C TIOTE L SHAW D ROSSI W ROONEY N REDMOND D PIZARRO N GAITAN

■ Daily Mail ■ Express ■ Newcastle Evening Chronicle ■ Evening Standard ■ Guardian ■ Independent ■ Lancashire Telegraph ■ Liverpool Echo ■ Manchester Evening News ■ Metro ■ Mirror ■ People ■ Star ■ Sun ■ Telegraph ■ Times ■ Wigan Evening Post ■ Wolverhampton Express & Star ■ Unpredicted transfers

Dotted lines are rumours and gossip, solid lines came true, colours show where rumours were reported according to the BBC (see above for key) Source: www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/gossip

g Lisbo

Sportin

Jan Thu 5th

A 400-page report by the Commission on Assisted Dying advises the British parliament to change the law so people can choose to die at home with their doctors’ help. William Hague becomes the first British foreign secretary in more than 50 years to visit Burma. He meets the Burmese foreign secretary, Wunna Maung Lwi, in advance of a meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi, the internationally acclaimed opposition leader. French mail order retailer La Redoute apologises for publishing an advert for children’s clothes with a naked man in it. The nudist can be seen walking in the sea behind four kids wearing clothes sold by the company. Fri 6th

A bluefin tuna fish sells for a record £473,000 at a Tokyo seafood market. The Japanese government has come under pressure to ban the fishing of bluefin tuna, whose stock has declined by around 80 per cent in the past 40 years.

“Retribution is the solution” Prosecution lawyer Mustafa Khatar argues in favour of the death penalty at an Egyptian court hearing at the trial of former president Hosni Mubarak. The ousted leader is accused of being complicit in the killing of protesters during 2011’s uprising. The newly elected Jamaican prime minister Portia Simpson Miller makes a statement saying it’s time to break away from the British monarchy and become a republic. Sat 7th

Bombings in northeastern Nigeria kill at least 37 people. Islamist group Boko Haram claims responsibility. 20th Jan

Dog star Uggie, leading canine in ‘The Artist’, is not the first dog to generate Oscar buzz. Legend has it that at the original Oscars ceremony in 1929 Rin Tin Tin – the most successful fourlegged star of all time – received the most votes in the Best Actor category, but was disqualified on grounds of species. The snub was just a minor twist in the tale of Rin Tin Tin and his owner, an awkward US gunnery corporal called Lee Duncan. Susan Orlean tells the incredible story of how these two orphans met on a French battlefield, before going on to change Hollywood forever… Sun 8th

e believed the dog was immortal. “There will always be a Rin Tin Tin,” Lee Duncan said, time and time again, to reporters, to visitors, to fan magazines, to neighbours, to family, to friends. At first this must have sounded absurd— just wishful thinking about the creature that had eased his loneliness and made him famous around the world. And yet, just as Lee believed, there has always been a Rin Tin Tin. The second Rin Tin Tin was not the talent his father was, but still, he was Rin Tin Tin, carrying on what the first dog had begun. After Rin Tin Tin Jr. there was Rin Tin Tin III, and then another Rin Tin Tin after him, and then another, and then another: there has always been another. And Rin Tin Tin has always been more than a dog. He was an idea and an ideal – a hero who was also a friend, a fighter who was also a caretaker, a mute genius, a companionable loner. He was one dog and many dogs, a real animal and an invented character, a pet as well as an international celebrity. He was born in 1918 and he never died.

A Dog of the Regiment In September 1918, General John Pershing launched the Saint-Mihiel offensive, one of the first major American assaults in the First World War. It was an attempt to push the Germans east out of the Meuse Valley. The Germans were dug in, and the Allied advance was agonising. The air was thick with driving rain and the ground was churned into hip-deep mud. Lee Duncan was assigned to the armoury department, but so many pilots were being killed or injured that even soldiers in his lowly position were told they might be placed on flying status when the biggest push of the offensive began. Lee’s account of this dark time is soldierly and understated. In his memoir he lists which pilot flew which mission and who did and didn’t come back. The more detailed accounting is reserved for the types of planes and equipment used. If this wasn’t precisely what he envisioned when he enlisted in southern California the previous year, there is no mention of that fact. What Lee did recall,

Lee Duncan with two descendants of the original Rin Tin Tin, the dog he found as a puppy in a bombed-out airbase in France and which would go on to conquer Hollywood

Jan Sat 14th

Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the Emir of Qatar, calls for international military intervention in Syria.

The butterfly effect Sun 15th

How a 19th century Swiss disciplinarian helped Meryl Streep win ‘Best Actress’

Words: Rob Orchard. Illustration: Christian Tate Sources: Coffee Perfection, London Canal Museum, Margaret Thatcher Foundation, Mrwhippyicecream.co.uk.

Egyptian reformist and former head of the UN nuclear watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei withdraws from his country’s presidential race protesting what he calls an undemocratic framework.

SCUOLA

Sun 15th

The UK’s education secretary, Michael Gove, faces criticism for proposing that taxpayers fund a new luxury yacht to give to the Queen as a gift for her Golden Jubilee. Gove later claims that his words were taken out of context.

1830 Don Giacomo Martinori, a teacher in the Blenio Alpine Valley in Italian-speaking Switzerland, beats 13-year-old Carlo Gatti for laziness. The beating is so severe that Gatti runs away from school and travels 1000 kilometres to Paris on foot to escape, where he works in cafés for the next 17 years.

Thousands take to the streets on a third day of protests in Bucharest, Romania. Demonstrators say they are angry about austerity measures and cuts in the salaries of public sector employees. At the Golden Globes in LA, Meryl Streep wins the award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Drama for ‘The Iron Lady’.

GATTI’S

‘The butterfly effect’

£ ££ £ ££

GATTI’S

Mon 16th

Tom Harris, a Labour MP in Scotland, resigns as his party’s internet advisor after posting a joke video made of footage from the German film ‘Downfall’. Harris had altered the English subtitles so that Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond was portrayed as Hitler. Tue 17th

Abu Qatada, a Jordanian citizen who is alleged to have been involved in Al-Qaeda plots to carry out bomb attacks, has his extradition from the UK to Jordan blocked by the European Court of Human Rights. The Strasbourg judges rule that his trial in Jordan would be affected by evidence obtained through torture and that the UK must not extradite under such circumstances.

1847 Gatti makes his way to London, where he sets up a Parisian-style café in Hungerford Market.

1854 Hungerford Market burns down. Gatti is one of the few traders with insurance: with his payout he builds a music hall on the site.

1862 The South Eastern Railway wants to build Charing Cross station on the site of Gatti’s music hall, and gives him a handsome payout for his property.

Gatti invests his money in the fledgling ice trade, building huge ice wells by Regent’s Canal, which he fills with tons of ice from Norway. Gatti has the ice delivered around the city in a fleet of carts.

1959 Margaret Thatcher is adopted for the safe Tory seat of Finchley, which she wins and will hold until 1992. In 1979 she becomes the Prime Minister, and goes on to preside over a period of major upheaval in Britain.

MERYL STREEP THE

26th Dec 2011 ‘The Iron Lady’, a biographical film about the life of Thatcher, is released, starring Meryl Streep. 1951. British Prime Minister Clement Attlee calls a new general election. Roberts loses again in Dartford, but reduces the Labour majority still further, impressing the party and singling her out for consideration for a safe seat. Roberts marries Denis Thatcher.

THATCHER

Gatti’s new supplies of ice enable ice cream to be brought to the masses. The Penny Lick, the first cheap ice cream, is introduced: it’s a glass of ice cream which the customer would lick clean and hand back to the vendor. The Penny Licks are very popular, but are blamed for helping spread TB and are banned in 1899.

ROBERTS

1950 Supported by her job at Lyons, Roberts stands as the Conservative candidate in the safe Labour seat of Dartford at the election. She loses but reduces the Labour majority by 6,000. At a dinner in Dartford she meets divorced businessman Denis Thatcher.

J. LYONS & CO LTD

1894 Fuelled in part by the ice cream boom, the first Lyons Tea Shop opens in Piccadilly, London. Lyons swiftly opens 250 more tea shops and develops Lyons Maid ice cream, served at its outlets. In 1928 the company opens the UK’s first food tech laboratory, in Hammersmith.

15th Jan 2012 Meryl Streep wins a Golden Globe for her portrayal of Thatcher. She goes on to win a BAFTA on 12th Feb and an Oscar on 26th Feb for the role.

1949 Margaret Roberts, a chemistry graduate, starts work at the Lyons food lab. She is part of a team that creates a process of air injection which turns one litre of ingredients into two litres of ice cream. This process later becomes the basis of Mr Whippy ice cream.

Feb Wed 1st

Facebook files for an initial public offering, putting them on track for one of the biggest ever stock market debuts. The Blue Ribbon Commission to examine the issue of nuclear waste in America presents its report to the House. ‘Reagan

and the Atomic Priesthood’

A fight breaks out between fans of Al-Masry and Al-Ahly football clubs in Port Said, Egypt resulting in the deaths of 74 people. ‘Moment that mattered’ Thu 2nd

Prince William arrives in the Falkland Islands for a tour of duty as a Royal Air Force search-and-rescue pilot. American treasure hunter Greg Brooks claims to have found the wreck of a British merchant ship torpedoed during WWII. The ship was thought to be carrying platinum bars now worth more than $3 billion. Vanity Fair reveals that Cezanne’s ‘The Card Players’ is the world’s most expensive painting. The picture was bought by the Qatari royal family for £160 million from Greek collector George Embiricos shortly before his death last year. Fri 3rd

It is announced that US private Bradley Manning is to face a court martial for allegedly leaking classified documents to Wikileaks. British MP Chris Huhne resigns as energy secretary after it is announced that charges will be brought against him and his estranged wife over claims she accepted penalty points for speeding on her driving licence on his behalf. John Terry is stripped of the England captaincy by the FA over allegations of racial abuse against QPR defender Anton Ferdinand. Terry denies the charge. 8th Feb

Reagan and the Atomic Priesthood As the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future presents its damning report on the country’s nuclear waste situation, Rob Orchard looks back over 30 years of surreal, doomed attempts to deal with the problem, including the creation of colourchanging cats and a new religion based around avoiding mountains. Illustration: Christian Tate. Wed 1st

“The Nuclear Waste Policy Act... which I’m signing today, provides the long overdue assurance that we now have a safe and effective solution to the nuclear waste problem... we can and will prevail over the sometimes complex and perplexing problems associated with energy” – President Ronald Reagan,

7th Jan, 1983

t was an entirely new predicament for the human race. Nuclear waste had been building up in ever-increasing quantities since the world’s first nuclear power station came online on 1st June 1954 in Obninsk, Russia. The waste was highly poisonous to humans and would remain so for hundreds of thousands of years. It had to be kept far away from the food chain, the water supply and the atmosphere, isolated in such a way that no one would come into contact with it for millenia. Wherever it was stored would have to be so geologically stable that there was no risk that the waste would be jolted into the open by an earthquake, flood or volcano.

Whatever material it was encased in would have to remain in one piece until the radioactivity subsided. And the society in which it was buried would have to be so predictably stable that its scientists and engineers would continue to safeguard the waste for countless generations to come. No such place existed. No such material existed. No such society existed. But Reagan was determined to tackle the problem. He spearheaded a grand bipartisan operation to find a solution, which resulted in his Nuclear Waste Policy Act, signed in 1983. The act laid out a battleplan: multiple potential sites for underground storage of nuclear waste would be identified and evaluated, funds would be raised by levying fees on utilities companies and digging would begin as soon as possible. Then, in 1987, Congress revised the act, halting the evaluation of alternative sites and designating Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the sole repository for the country’s nuclear waste. There was outcry in Nevada. Not only is Yucca Mountain just 100 miles northwest of the tourist boomtown of Las Vegas, but it is also a site of spiritual significance to the local Shoshone

Feb Wed 22nd

It is reported that a 19-year-old Afghan woman jailed for 12 years for adultery after she was raped by a relative is set to be freed – but only after she agrees to marry the man who attacked her. ‘Send in the Cookie Monster’ UK trade union Unison says Jeremy Clarkson should be sacked for comments made on ‘The One Show’. Speaking about striking workers, Clarkson said “I would take them outside and execute them in front of their families.” He insisted it was taken out of context and that it was clearly a joke. ‘Send in the Cookie Monster’ Wed 22nd

Elmo may look like the lovechild of a bath mat and a genetically modified chrysanthemum. But the three-and-a-half year-old baby monster exerts the kind of magnetism that has made has $2,000.

Subhead here in this font

show: the result was a buying frenzy which made hundreds of Elmo may look like the lovechild millions of dollars for the Sesame of a bath mat and a genetically Workshop, and led to some dolls being modified chrysanthemum. But the advertised at as much as $2,000. three-and-a-half year-old baby monster exerts the kind of magnetism ut while you can see the appeal that has made him into a marketing to toddlers, Elmo has a more sensation. In 1996, a doll version of unlikely fanbase – the world’s the red, shaggy ‘Sesame Street’ star, leading politicians. For Elmo has been “Tickle Me Elmo” – was featured on deployed by USAID (the US Agency US comedian Rosie O’Donnell’s talk for International Development) to show: the result was a buying frenzy Pakistan, where his not insignificant which made hundreds of millions of mission is to help boost literacy in a dollars for the Sesame Workshop, and country with one of the lowest rates in led to some dolls being advertised at the world, and promote tolerance at as much as $2,000. But while you can the same time as his home country is see the appeal to toddlers, Elmo has dropping bombs in drone attacks on a more unlikely fanbase – the world’s the north west tribal areas. leading politicians. For Elmo has been In the West, the reaction tPakistan, deployed by USAID (the US Agency where his not insignificant mission is for International Development) to to help boost. Pakistan, where his not insignificant mission is to help boost literacy in a End credit in this style here stuff country with one of the lowest rates in about books etc and a www.website. the world, and promote tolerance at com cvdgcvadcv asvc asv csav casv the same time as his home country is csavcvsagcvsagjvcgsavcvsac

The findings of the inquiry into Stafford Hospital reveal a number of NHS failings at the facility where as many as 1,200 patients died in four years after suffering neglect. There are cases of unqualified receptionists assessing emergency treatment, sick people being denied food and drink, and patients falling over and dying because there were no staff on hand to attend to them. 23rd Oct

“I’m a proud Effin woman. And I always will be an Effin woman” Anne Marie Kennedy begins a campaign to get Facebook to recognise the village of Effin in County Limerick after it was was branded “offensive” and blocked from the site. Wed 22nd

Herman Cain announces that he will withdraw from the race for Republican nomination in the United States presidential election following a series of sexual harassment allegations. Around 45,000 people are evacuated from the German city

Sun Tue 15th 5th Jan Feb 2012

Moment that mattered

Super Bowl XLVI’s accidental touchdown by Adam Goldstein, sports writer author

This year’s Super Bowl was an incredible spectacle – it was the most watched programme in US history, with 117.7 million viewers, and the most tweeted-about, with 12,333 tweets per second – but you could argue that most people watch it for the hoopla, the half-time show and the glitz and the glamour, rather than the actual game. But this one contained a bizarre bit of history, a genuine first – a touchdown that the attacking player didn’t want to score. The New York Giants were losing to the New England Patriots 17-15 with one minute and three seconds to go before the end of the game. Thanks to an incredible 80-yard drive, however, they were three

yards away from the end zone. The tactical thing for the Giants to do would be to bide their time, let the clock run down and then kick a relatively easy field goal to win the game by a point. The Giants kicker, Lawrence Tynes, hadn’t missed a kick of less than 30 yards in four years. The fans knew it was the right thing to do: the coaches knew it was the right thing to do, even I knew it and I was 4,000 miles away from the game being played in Lucas Oil Stadium in Indiana. I’m just not sure anyone mentioned it to the New York running back, Ahmad Bradshaw. When the play happened, New York quarterback Eli Manning handed the ball to Bradshaw. In Bradshaw you have an athlete who had probably spent his entire waking life dreaming of scoring the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl. He had the ball in his

David Duprey/AP/Press Association Images

hands and the end zone in his sights: instinct bit and he surged forward. I think it was somewhere around the two-yard line that he realised nobody was trying to tackle him – that’s also when he heard his quarterback yelling at him not to score, something surely every bone in his body was urging him to do. Still, you could see him trying not to cross that line. He slammed on the brakes and you could almost hear the screeching and the smoke rising. His feet were planted on the goal line, but his momentum (he’s over 200 pounds) was too much. He turned, fell slowly backwards, and bumflopped over the line. Hardly the most ceremonious way to live out your lifelong dream. Sure, he celebrated – he had scored, after all and put his team up in the Super Bowl – but he had done wrong. His moment of glory meant the ball was going

back to New England’s Tom Brady – perhaps the greatest quarterback ever – with a minute to go. And a minute can be a very long time in American football. The best way to beat Brady is to not let him on the field and Bradshaw had handed him an opportunity. Had Brady inspired a comeback win, Bradshaw would have been to blame. Luckily for him, the Patriots’ receivers helped him out and dropped nearly every catch of that last drive. Bradshaw let out a sigh of relief, and his “tush-down” went into the history books as a bizarre sporting highlight rather than the moment that cost New York the Super Bowl.

Adam Goldstein is the author of ‘Tailgate to Heaven: A British NFL Fan Tackles America’, published by Potomac Books in July. www.tailgatetoheaven.com

President Nasheed makes his way to an underwater meeting of the Maldivian cabinet to highlight the threat global warming poses to the lowest-lying nation on Earth, in October 2009

Paradise lost

Murray Garrard was one of the last people to interview Maldivian president Mohamed Nasheed before he was forced to resign live on national television. As the dust settles on the coup, Garrard tells the story of Nasheed’s rise and fall – and asks the former leader what is to become of his country Tue 7th

Mohammed Seeneen | Sinan Hussain/AP/Press Association Images

Tuesday 7th February, 12.58pm Flanked by two unknown bodyguards, Mohamed Nasheed, president of the Maldives, is marched into a meeting room in his office. He stands before a camera and makes a short broadcast on national TV. “I’ve come to the realisation that staying in office could subject the nation and its people to a lot of harm,” he says, “and have thus decided to resign as president with immediate effect.” Mohamed Nasheed says a quick goodbye to his staff before being hustled out of the building and into the street, where he is met by a baying mob. Nasheed later claimed that his resignation was made at gunpoint. The coup came after weeks of demonstrations against his rule, during which groups of dissident police and soldiers joined with protesters and took to the streets. Earlier that day, the situation had come to a head, with scenes of chaos in the capital. Senior security staff had made frantic calls to the Indian government requesting military assistance. But it was too late to stop the fall of the first democratically elected president of the Maldives.

Maldivian president Nasheed announces his resignation

Before the coup The Maldivian capital of Malé is an Alcatraz of bland office blocks and cramped residential quarters that’s home to more than 100,000 people, and although tiny is the most densely populated city in the world. This concrete square mile is not your typical Maldivian island: it’s bruising, beach-less and glamour-free, a pressure cooker of a place charged

with political tension and religious intolerance. It’s a world away from the pleasure palaces on the paradise atolls nearby, where it is hard to imagine the Maldives as anything but a benign playground for the world’s super rich, with a population too small to be significant and too laidback to be threatening, and a hospitality industry too economically important to ever be questioned. It was in Malé that I spoke to Mohamed Nasheed, shortly before he was deposed. Nasheed bounded into the interview without any sign of the limp he apparently sports, allegedly the result of injuries sustained during beatings suffered under the previous regime. He had the bright-eyed, caffeinated look that comes from living in a city that has a blanket ban on buying liquor of any kind, and spoke rapidly, with a whir of frenetic gesticulation. His words now seem eerily prescient. “In this country, past presidents have either been mobbed, murdered or banished,” he told me. “New governments spend a good two or three years in perpetual revolution.” What made Nasheed’s presidency unique from the start was that he was

Almanac

March digested – the month’s miscellanea

Elections and referenda

Born

Russia Presidential election, Sun 4th

Public Catalogue Foundation

65.25% 63.6%

Result: Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is president for a third time.

Slovakia Parliamentary elections, Sat 10th Turnout: 59.11% 44.41% Winning percentage: Result: Former Prime Minister Robert Fico returns to power as leader of the ‘Direction – Social Democracy’ party.

Switzerland Holidays referendum, Sun 11th

Turnout: Winning percentage:

Southend Airport

London’s sixth airport, opened Mon 5th

Acne lights

Crime prevention tool which highlights teenagers’ spots, launched Tue 6th

11,527

Turnout: 44-46% 66.5% Winning percentage: Result: No to six weeks of statutory annual holiday.

Germany Presidential election, Sun 18th

Record breakers

Online archive of every oil painting in public ownership in the UK, Thu 1st

99.4%

80.4%

Most skips in one hour Wed 7th Annie Maria Bissoondial (USA)

Result: Joachim Gauck elected on the first ballot by a Federal Convention (620 members of the Bundestag, 620 members selected by the states of Germany)

Slovenia Family Code referendum, Sun 25th Turnout: 30.1% Winning percentage: 54.55% Result: Rejection of the Family Code bill – which proposed to expand existing same-sex registered partnerships to have all rights of married couples, except adoption.

Senegal Presidential election, Sun 26th Turnout: 55% 65.8% Winning percentage: Result: Macky Sall wins against incumbent president Abdoulaye Wade, whose validity to stand was questioned.

Tiny Til

Rare earless bunny, unveiled to the media, Wed 14th

Died

Most AA batteries held in one hand Mon 19th Silvio Sabba (Italy)

James Q. Wilson

American political scientist, Thu 1st

Tiny Til

Rare earless bunny, trodden on at press conference, Wed 14th

George Tupou V

King of Tonga, Sun 18th

Jocky Wilson

Darts player, Sat 24th

Gambia Legislative elections, Thu 29th 38.7% Turnout: Winning percentage: 51.82% Result: The APRC party take 42 of the 48 seats available. Six opposition parties boycott the election saying it is rigged in favour of APRC.

Winners Wales 2012 Six Nations Championship, Sat 17th Switzerland World Women’s Curling Champions, Sun 25th

Most boiled eggs to be peeled and eaten in a minute Fri 23rd Ashrita Furman (USA)

Adrienne Rich

American feminist, Tue 27th

Earl Scruggs

Bluegrass musician, Wed 28th

Encyclopaedia Britannica Printed reference guides, Tue 13th

Stuart Ramson/AP | Uwe Meinhold/dapd/Press Association Images

Turnout: Winning percentage:

“I am just going outside and may be some time” 16th

Mar 2012

On this day 100 years ago Lawrence Oates, British Antarctic explorer and a member of Scott’s ill-fated expedition, walked into a blizzard where he faced certain death.

Timeline of the tallest towers 14

500m

400m

300m

200m

100m

As the Tokyo Skytree A and London’s Shard B become the world’s tallest broadcasting tower and western Europe’s tallest building respectively, we see how they measure up in the chronology of the world’s tallest free-standing structures. 1 2750BC-1311AD Great Pyramid of Giza, Egypt (due to erosion height is now 138.8m) 2 1311-1549 Lincoln Cathedral, England (spire collapsed in 1549) 3 1549-1625 St Olaf’s Church, Talinn, Estonia (spire destroyed by lightning in 1625) 4 1625-1647 St Mary’s Church, Straslund, Germany (spire destroyed by lightning in 1647) 5 1647-1874 Strasbourg Cathedral, France 6 1874-1876 St Nikolai, Hamburg, Germany 7 1876-1880 Notre-Dame Cathedral, Rouen, France 8 1880-1884 Cologne Cathedral, Germany 9 1884-1889 Washington Monument, US 10 1889-1930 Eiffel Tower, Paris, France 11 1930-1931 Chrysler Building, New York, USA 12 1931-1967 Empire State Building, New York, US 13 1967-1976 Ostankino Tower, Moscow, Russia 14 1976-2007 CN Tower, Toronto, Canada 15 2007- Burj Khalifa, Dubai, UAE

TC or not TC

30,066 36,275

Joseph Kony vs Kim Kardashian Documentary ‘Kony 2012’ about the Ugandan guerilla leader goes viral Flour bombed on the red carpet C Threatens to sue a plastic surgeon for using her image on a billboard A B

100

Total number of words in Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Total number of words in PayPal’s terms and conditions Source: Which? report published 22nd March

0 1st

2nd

3rd

4th

5th

6th

7th

8th

9th

10th

11th

12th

13th

14th

15th

16th

17th

18th

19th

20th

21st

22nd

23rd

24th

25th

26th

27th

28th

29th

30th

Source: Google Insights, based on Google text searches in March. Axis numbers reflect a normalised version of the number of searches that have been carried out for a particular term, relative to the total number of searches carried out on Google over time.

31st

Mar Fri 16th

The US military names the soldier suspected of shooting dead 16 Afghan civilians in Kandahar Province. Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, 38, is transferred from a base in Kuwait to a penitentiary in Kansas before being formally charged.

“We ask… the government in Khartoum to stop killing their own men, women and children” Actor George Clooney speaks to reporters at a protest outside the Sudanese embassy in Washington DC before being arrested for his part in the rally. The trial of Geir Haarde, the former prime minister of Iceland, comes to an end. Haarde was the first politician in the world to be put on trial for failing to protect the country against its economic downfall. Sat 17th

Sun 18th

The Pacific nation of Tonga goes into mourning after its king, George Tupou V, dies from leukemia at the age of 63 in a Hong Kong intensive care unit. McLaren’s driver Jenson Button wins the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, the first race of the 2012 Formula 1 season.

Daniel Hambury/PA Wire/Press Association Images

The FA Cup quarter-final between Tottenham Hotspur and Bolton Wanderers at White Hart Lane is suspended after 41 minutes when Bolton midfielder Fabrice Muamba collapses on the pitch and stops breathing. Attempts are made to resuscitate him before he is rushed to hospital. 21st Oct

Ceausescu and the bear As bear-hunting season begins in Romania, Alex Ghiza and Alina Totti tell the story of the country’s biggest bear and his encounter with a trigger-happy communist dictator. Illustrations: Vanessa Arnaud Thu 15th

ittle fanfare is made of Lache the bear at R o m a n i a ’s premier hunting museum. The halls of the Muzeul Cinegetic in the small town of Posada outside Bucharest are lined with thousands of skulls and pelts from over a century of killing. As many as 25,000 people pass through the doors every year to view the country’s rich tradition of hunting, but the exhibits did not have any names, nor explanations of how each animal – the lynxes, wolves, stags and wild bears – have come to be here. On one large wall Lache’s huge skin is stretched out in its full glory. Lache, like every other skinned beast here, is just another pelt. The woman working on reception doesn’t know that the bear that has hung on her walls for years is called Lache, nor that he was once been dearly loved by thousands. Nor does she know the identity of the man who shot Lache dead in 1983 to claim the world record as the killer of the biggest brown bear ever shot in the wild. That man was despotic Romanian communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu, one of the vilest and longest-lasting dictators Europe has ever seen.

The hunt begins 1983 was a bad year to be Romanian, but an even worse one if you happened to be a Romanian bear. It was the darkness before the dawn, before “Glasnost” and “Perestroika” had taken shape. Solidarity might well have been organising strikes at a shipyard in Gdansk in Poland, but further east in Romania the future looked grim. The economy was in a shambles: food rationed, queues for everything,

electricity sporadic. The system was failing. But Nicolae Ceausescu was confident in his strong-handed leadership. So confident, in fact, that he had imposed a version of extreme austerity on his people: to pay off Romania’s massive foreign debt, they had their already meagre incomes cut to the bone. But this was of little concern to Ceausescu – he had bigger things on his mind. Romania’s brutal communist dictator was a keen huntsman, and

During the 1970s and early 1980s whilst communism slowly ate itself, Ceausescu became embroiled in a hunting power struggle with other dictators from Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Libya and beyond. For each of them, bagging a world record in hunting was more than a matter of personal pride: it was proof of their country’s strength, their power to bend nature to their will. In 1981 Field Marshal Tito, the enigmatic ruler of Yugoslavia, smashed the world record for the biggest wild brown bear killed. The The locals to this news sent Ceausescu into a rage and unleashed a chain of events that would day remember see party apparatchiks scramble to find a bigger bear for their master fondly how Lache to kill, even going so far as to begin would happily drink a programme of overfeeding bears in the equivalent of a Harghita county in order to produce a bigger specimen. It was all to no avail: toilet cistern full of Tito’s trophy was still the biggest. The beer in one sitting” hunt continued for months until, finally, Nicolae Ceausescu came face loved to head to the country’s vast to snout with Lache, the biggest bear mountain wildernesses armed with a in the world. rifle to take a break from the burdens of office. He had been introduced to The bear who loved beer the hobby by Ion Gheorghe Maurer, a colleague from the Central Committee Poiana Brasov is a little ski resort close and one of Ceausescu’s supporters to the Transylvanian city of Brasov, and in his “election” to head of the was a holiday hotspot for Romanians in Communist Party in 1965. Since then, the ’80s. Every weekend the locals and Ceausescu had transformed Romania tourists would climb up the mountain into his personal hunting domain, to a beer garden called “Ursul” – the which he protected jealously. In 1974 Bear – where they would eat grilled he banned foreigners from hunting in meatballs and knock back beers. the country after a Frenchman won Ursul was home to two large brown a trophy for shooting a bear in the bears, the biggest and best-loved of mountains of Vrancea in the eastern which was Lache. Regular visitors Carpathians. Sadly for Ceausescu, to Ursul described how Lache had he was not the most talented kind eyes and loved to entertain of hunters – an army of beaters people, particularly the children who were employed to help chase prey brought him treats: he became a huge towards the dictator – but he was a attraction and thousands of people committed one. would gawp at him through his cage

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