A-list stars turn out to script a happy ending as developers threaten an LA oasis of rural life.
Hollywood stars rally to save farm This means the story has become an even more 'Hollywood' sort of protest: it is a cliff-hanger with the audience hoping desperately for a happy ending.
11 June 2006
Hollywood stars rally to save farm
'Send for Disney' to save Venice
The waters are rising around Venice. Each year the floods worsen and last longer.
Carpets of slime coat St Mark's Square. Statues and church walls are coated with filth. The city is drowning. But there is a solution: run the place like Disneyland. 'Send for Disney' to save Venice The Italian government recently backed a £3bn plan that would involve building barriers between the lagoon around Venice and the sea.
The barriers would be raised when abnormally high tides were due. But, unless global climate controls are agreed in the next few years, no one will be able to save one of the world's most glorious cities. Not even the Disney Corporation.
Stockholm: Let the summer madness begin
The solstice is still 10 days away, but midsummer silliness of Abba-esque proportions has taken hold of the Swedes.
It is quite a shock, coming from a people who have brought us such sensible things as Volvo cars, Ikea, Skype computer conversations and paternity leave. Stockholm: Let the summer madness begin but to escape their natural propensity for staying alone indoors, with a bottle, the Swedes force themselves to join sports clubs, choirs, bands and evening classes.
This explains why they are the third biggest music exporters in the world and can't help but be brilliant at golf, tennis and athletics.
Boys flocking to be 'ducks' for China's bored housewives
Near the restaurant where Mao Zedong and President Nixon shared roast duck during the heady days of 'ping pong diplomacy', Beijing's new ducks strut their stuff at a popular nightspot.
They are easy to pick out: in tight clothes and sunglasses, the ducks sway to the beat and scan the seething dance floor. Boys flocking to be 'ducks' for China's bored housewives The commoditisation of sex is nothing new in China, where social inequalities and consumerism have created desires only sex work can satisfy - both for the prostitutes and for their customers, who have the cash for illicit pleasures.
Bordeaux's end of the vine
The Boscarys are saying goodbye to their 15th-century château, to the 100 acres of vines in the uplands of central Bordeaux, to their stocked fishpond and gravelled drive, to the view across the rolling hills and scattered woods.
After generations working the soil of south-west France, they will soon be working hard on their new terroir: a tourist leisure park in northern Morocco. Bordeaux's end of the vine > The Boscarys do not know if the new proprietors will take up the profession that has made Bordeaux famous for centuries.
'Good luck to them if they do,' 'Frankly, they'll need it.'
9 June 2006
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
