New StatesmanBritain's award-winning current affairs magazineWelcome to the Caribbean: Paradise Lost- August 14, 2008 Any withdrawal of enthusiasm for Antigua as a tourist destination will at once reduce the island to a basket caseThe tiny island states of the Caribbean are drifting in the dark. In a world dominated by huge corporations, national economies expanding beyond the human im agination, enormous armies erupting in bloodshed in remote corners of the world, tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes tossing and turning millions into human detritus, these islands, from which a substantial number of British...http://www.newstatesman.com/society/2008/08/antigua-caribbean-island Rebranding Britain- August 14, 2008 The Kit-Cat Club: Friends Who Imagined a NationOphelia Field HarperPress, 544pp, 25Before Ophelia Field's fine new book, the role of pastry in the life of the mind was restricted to Proust's "difice du souvenir", the vast memory rush caused by dunking his madeleine in his tisane. A Kit-Cat, being a heavy-duty mutton pie, was altogether more substantial than the French delicacy. But if Proust's dunking gave rise to a majestic work of literature, two centuries earlier Kit-Cat Club devotees...http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2008/08/kit-cat-club-field-ophelia How nuclear power can save the planet- August 14, 2008 Increased use of nuclear (an outright competitor to coal as a deliverer of baseload power) is essential to combat climate changeThe location for this year's Camp for Climate Action - outside the Kingsnorth power station in Kent - was well chosen: it is here that E.ON wants to build the first new coal-fired plant in the UK in nearly 30 years. With coal the most global-warming-intensive fuel on the market, and six more coal plants in the pipeline if Kingsnorth gets the go-ahead, there is a clear..http://www.newstatesman.com/environment/2008/08/lynas-climate-nuclear-coal A question of character- August 14, 2008 The deaths of four soldiers at Deepcut army barracks have inspired a compelling play in this year's Fringe. Brian Cathcart, who investigated the real-life cases, is intrigued to see himself brought to life on stageI only allowed myself to say it a few times, but I admit I enjoyed it: "I'm in a play, you know. This summer, at the Edinburgh Festival." Then, to clear up the confusion: "Hahaha no, I'm not acting. I'm a character in a play. You know, there's a character called Brian Cathcart, and...http://www.newstatesman.com/theatre/2008/08/play-deepcut-bowman-life-stage In east London a model which could transform society- August 14, 2008 Alyssa McDonald visits a project where school leavers get a second chance"If I was in charge of this country it would all be very different," Eddie Stride tells me, and it is easy to believe him. He has been running City Gateway, a community project that provides young people in the borough of Tower Hamlets with professional training and evening activities, for the past five years. Local teenagers can "just kind of turn up" for an evening's football session or a ...http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2008/08/city-gateway-project-centre Big-shed nation- August 14, 2008 They sit by the road, windowless and vast. But what are they for Joe Moran on the warehouses, logistics and invisible networks that control our daily livesA new word has entered the vocabulary of environmental protest: megashed. A well-organised "stop the shed" campaign is currently centring on a disused RAF airfield just outside Andover, next to the busy A303, where Tesco plans to build an enormous distribution warehouse. Yet big sheds - those huge, windowless warehouses you see at major road..http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2008/08/shed-goods-warehouses-near Show of strength- August 14, 2008 The British Museum's summer exhibition demonstrates how the legacy of Hadrian's powerful empire permeates our everyday livesAt the end of Via Nicola Zabaglia in Rome, the British and Commonwealth military cemetery is bounded by the 3rd-century Aurelian Wall. The immaculately maintained graves of soldiers killed in the 1944 liberation of Rome lie under tall pine trees. At their centre is a memorial. A slab of rough, reddish stone is set into brickwork. Underneath, a plaque reads: "This stone...http://www.newstatesman.com/arts-and-culture/2008/08/emperor-hadrian-empire-british From war zones to the perils of Old Street- August 14, 2008 It's a shame that we never get to read headlines such as: "Essentially decent sort does his best, means no harm to anyone" - which is to say, stories about most people, in most placesIt is humbling and alarming to be reminded of the degree to which the media can shape the perceptions of even those of us who should know better. Leaving the pub to which the launch party for my new book has repaired, a couple of my friends get into a brisk exchange of views with an obstreperous fellow patron. No...http://www.newstatesman.com/society/2008/08/shame-anyone-sort-means-places Comedy of Eros- August 14, 2008 The Good Plain CookBethan Roberts Serpent's Tail, 320pp, 10.99Bethan Roberts's second novel is a meditative, sensual and largely restrained piece of writing that is set in rural Sussex in 1936. It tells the story of Kitty Allen - the cook of the title - who goes to live with and work for Ellen Steinberg, a rich bohemian American, her communist lover George Crane and their two young daughters. It is told from many points of view but it ...http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2008/08/bethan-roberts-kitty-ellen An Olympic surprise- August 14, 2008 Before they began on 8 August, the Beijing Olympics promised a murky cocktail of pollution and repression, with an entire city drilled into submission, human rights shunted aside and dissidents disappeared, possibly into the swirling smog. These were to be the no-fun Games. But in their first days at least, the Olympics have been surprisingly sunny, free from unsavoury politics and the angst of the showpiece track-and-field events to come. ...http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2008/08/beijing-days-games-fun-rights |