Weekend 282012-09-22 29

guardian weekend 22.09.
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Harry who? h J JK Rowling -wli g the next chapter
B tter ill Bitter pil l The truth The tr uth about drug about drug trials trials On yer bike n bike Stylish t Stylish stuff for budd n for budding cycl i t cyclists Jess artnerJess Cartner Morley Morley y goes l for goes hell for leat e lea her
THIS PRODUCT IS MADE FROM SUSTAINABLY MANAGED FOREST AND CONTROLLED SOURCES
Contents 22.09.12
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COVER: SPENCER MURPHY. THIS PAGE: ROBERT ORMEROD; LOGAN WANG; EMILY STEIN; STEPHEN LENTHALL; COLIN CAMPBELL
Keep taking the medicine... Even though it doesnt work. Ben Goldacre reports on a medical scandal Bill and coo Simon Hattenstone talks pigeons with Edinburghs doomen For her next trick High drama, secrecy Does JK Rowlings rst postPotter novel live up to the hype? Decca Aitkenhead meets her Changing gear Been bitten by the cycling bug? Heres what you need for autumn/winter Everything I do Rocknroller-turnedphotographer Bryan Adams tells Emma Brockes about shooting everyone from the Queen to Mickey Rourke to Amy Winehouse
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7 Tim Dowling Its all about me 8 Your view Have your say. Plus Ask a grown-up 10 Big picture Urban Exploration, by Bradley Garrett 12 Lucy Mangans take on Kate 14 Q&A Sheridan Smith, actor 16 Experience I lost the power of language
66 All ages Feeling ne 68 Wish list What we like this week 69 Jess Cartner-Morley Cant see yourself in a leather shift dress? You will Plus get the look; the Measure 70 Autumn style icons Carey Mulligans red carpet wardrobe 73 Beauty Sali Hughes on the best anti-shine products. Plus What I see in the mirror: Charlie Higson
77 Wine Fiona Beckett picks perries 79 Yotam Ottolenghi Brik parcels with apple and clove. Plus vermicelli, beef and chickpea casserole 81 Dan Lepard Fresh curd cheese chocolate cakes and lemon tart 83 Restaurants Marina OLoughlin eats her words at AG Hendy & Co Home Store Kitchen in Hastings
SPACE
88 Great pretenders Seen a house style and want it now? Simple: cheat 92 Budding geniuses How the RHS is bringing gardening into schools 95 Alys Fowler Plants for shady spots 97 Lets move to Harlesden and Old Oak Common. Plus Snooping around
FASHION
65 Weekender Helena Maria Kidacka, 23, handbag designer
FOOD & DRINK

7 74 Hot + cold Its culinary magic, Hugh FearnleyWhittingstall says
MIND & RELATIONSHIPS

85 This column will change your life Leave whiners alone, says Oliver Burkeman. Plus What Im really thinking: the junior doctor 87 Blind date Is it love at rst sight?
BACK
100 On the road Sam Wollaston tries out the Renault Twizy: no windows, but lots of new friends 101 Puzzles Crossword, quiz, Scrabble 102 Your pictures This week: Layers
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The Guardian Weekend | 22 September 2012 5
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A dissertation about newspaper columnists? Sounds
Tim Dowling
omeone has written a dissertation about me. Its not about me, exactly its about newspaper columnists but a good deal of it concerns me, probably because I agreed to be interviewed for it. When the woman who wrote it emails me a nal draft, I print it out immediately and read late into the night. For obvious reasons, I nd it fascinating. At last, I think: academic legitimacy. I try to leave the print-out in a place where my wife will nd it and casually start leang through it, but shes in a spiky, pre-Sunday lunch mood. The children drift into the kitchen to peer into pots and make disappointed faces. I dont know why I bother, my wife says. What is that? the youngest asks, lifting a lid. Its a courgette, I say. I grew it. Luckily for you, I managed only one. Twenty years from now, my wife says with a world-weary air, youll tell people your mother was a powerful personality A dicult woman, the oldest one says. a powerful personality, my wife says, who made you sit down to lunch every Sunday and forced you to discuss things. Like exactly how we should talk about her in the future, the middle one says. After lunch, I try to put the dissertation in my wifes hands, but shes on the phone, talking about work: she may or may not be getting on a plane the next morning. I linger by the door until shes done. On or o ? I say. O again. Whats that? A dissertation about observational columns in British newspapers, I say. Like mine. It has to be all about you, doesnt it? she says. It is all about me. Seriously. Her phone rings again. I leave the print-out on the table. Sundays second meal is a collection of odds and ends tossed into a pot and tinged red with paprika. The children believe my wife invented the dish as a kind of punishment. It is known, with no great aection, as Spicey Ricey. What are those? the youngest one asks, pointing at his plate. Your father put beans in it, my wife says. I grew them, I say. Can I eat in there? the middle one says, pointing to the sitting room. No, my wife says. Can I get down? the youngest one says. No. Whats this? the oldest asks,
fascinating
turning over a sheaf of paper. Someone, my wife says, has written an MA dissertation about your father. How can you write an MA dissertation about someone who does not have an MA? he says. Just eat the beans, the middle one says to the youngest one. Shut up, you dick, the youngest one says. Dont say dick, my wife says. I hate people saying dick. Hitler didnt have an MA, I say. You just said dick twice, the middle one says. Can everyone please stop swearing and eat, my wife says. Downton Abbey is on soon, so Ill be Her phone rings. Her eyes y to the clock as she answers, then dart wildly around the room. I can tell its about work if someone rang for any other reason this close to the start of Downton Abbey, shed say, Are you mad? and hang up. Whats happened? she says into her phone, rising from the table and leaving the room. The younger two seize the opportunity to leg it. Im left alone with the older one, who is reading while he eats. We sit in silence for a while. Is it true that you decided to closely emulate your predecessor, Jon Ronson? he says. No comment, I say.
ILLUSTRATION: BENOIT JACQUES FOR THE GUARDIAN
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Your view Letters, emails, comments

Once I decided How Much Is Enough (15 September) wasnt a spoof, I felt sick and then angry. People who earn 50k or more a year, feeling poor? Send them out with a social worker for a few days, to see real poverty, then ask how poor they feel. Linda Robinson Great Fencote, North Yorkshire Rather than make me angry or sad, the piece on wealth had me laughing more than Mangan and Dowling combined. There is something about rich individuals wallowing in selfpity that makes me laugh and grateful that I wont be joining their sad ranks in the foreseeable future. Sue Hawking Eastington, Gloucestershire Interesting to see that pensioners didnt feature. My husband and I are very happy on our modest income: about 28,000 plus savings but no mortgage. Patricia Long East Harling, Norfolk What an interesting mix of features. The poor, who seem to number the most wealthy, and a sculptor (Weekender Tom Maccoy) who considers a caravan heaven on Earth. I wonder whos the most contented? Keith Adams Kenilworth, Warwickshire It was wonderful to meet young people from all over the world through Julian Germains photos (Back To School, 15 September). I found myself imagining what would happen if they could all spend time together. In my minds eye, I saw them giving and learning so much. Roger Catchpole Launceston, Cornwall Julian Germains Back To School was the best glimpse yet of our embarking on a relationship before casting them aside. Richard Jones Nottingham The occupations of your blind date participants are increasingly obscure. I can hazard a guess at what a digital agency director does, but a global CSR (15 September)? How about including some everyday occupations such as plumber, gardener or nurse? Paul Reade Burnley, Lancashire
Ask a grown-up
WHY CANT THE POPE BE FEMALE? EVIE, 5
Comedian Josie Long replies I dont want to have to introduce Evie to the concept of sexism, but I think Im going to have to. Sexism is alive and well. The whole of society is institutionally sexist. Religions have some especially crazy views about what women are allowed to do, but women in most industries encounter sexism. I get people telling me all the time that women arent funny. It chips away at your condence and its something my male counterparts dont have to deal with. For now, being pope is an old mans game which might seem odd because he wears a dress, and usually wearing a dress is a womanly pursuit. Its a shame women cant be pope, because I think many of them would want to be. Loads of women love the church and devote their lives to it. Also, from the outside, the job looks like a lot of fun. You wear ceremonial garb, you get given dinners, you get your hands kissed and theres a lot of travel involved. I love travel. My hope is that by the time Evie is old enough to be pope, theyll have changed the rules and shell be able to do it. My advice for whatever she wants to pursue in life is to be completely and totally entitled and indignant. There is only one type of person in this world when you grow up, and that is adults. We all have dierent abilities and capabilities, but none of those is gender. If youre 10 or under, and have a question that needs answering, email ask.a.grownup@guardian. co.uk, and well ask an expert for you.
There is something about rich individuals wallowing in self-pity that makes me laugh
worlds future. Worth a shedload of economists predictions. Richard Devine By email I just de-cluttered my Facebook page (Pleased To Unmeet You, 15 September). I kept people whose status updates I can imagine myself commenting on, or who sometimes comment on mine. Those with whom Im not friendly enough to bother interacting got removed. This meant deleting several former close friends, and keeping a surprising number of people I hardly know. David Silverman Edinburgh How to unfriend people: if you dont know them that well, or know them but dont particularly like them, dont accept their friend requests in the rst place. Its a snub, yes, but a minor one compared with, say,
There is 80-year-old Shirley Conran in What I See In The Mirror (8 September), whose beauty routine consists exclusively of using almond cooking oil, next to your weekly demonstration of a variety of expensive make-up products we cant do without. I know who Im inspired by. Brigitte Houghton Stockport Mr and Mrs Dowling last 20 years (15 September)? Stone the crows! Jenny Watts Brighton I have to disagree with Nic Stevensons letter (15 September): surely the point of the letters page is to encourage people such as myself to go back and properly read last weeks articles. Andrew Rolph Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire Write to Guardian Weekend, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU (weekend@guardian.co.uk), or comment at guardian.co.uk. A full name and postal address (not for publication) must be supplied. For inclusion on Saturday, letters should reach us by rst post on Tuesday, and may be edited.
8 22 September 2012 | The Guardian Weekend
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Big picture Urban Exploration, by Bradley Garrett

He may look like a kid in a hoodie, but Bradley Garrett has a degree in anthropology and history, a PhD in social and cultural geography, and is about to take up a research post at Oxford University. But away from his lofty academic work, this bespectacled American is a trespasser urban explorer has a nicer ring who inltrates abandoned buildings, sewers, bridges and oce-block rooftops, lming and photographing them to bring these hidden spaces to public view. Garretts curiosity about what lurks above and beneath our cities has taken him, among hundreds of other places, to the drains of Las Vegas, St Sulpice church in Paris and New Court, headquarters of Rothschild Bank in London, where this shot was taken. While studying for his PhD at Royal Holloway in London, Garrett and his fellow explorers snuck into steam tunnels under campus and on to the college roof. They cut undeniably glamorous gures young, good-looking, sporting combats and tattoos, kit swinging from their backpacks. Garrett believes we arent drawn to o-limits built spaces the way we are in the countryside, where we happily explore mountains and woods. Were reacting to increased surveillance and control over urban space, he writes. Essentially, were trespassing, so in some ways what were doing is always illegal. He hopes future Royal Holloway students will continue to explore its hidden nooks. Meanwhile, he is exploring somewhere in the world until he heads back to the UK next month to take up his research post. Oxford City Council, watch out. Hannah Booth Urban Explorers is part of the 2012 Brighton Photo Biennial, from 6 October-4 November (bpb.org.uk).
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Lucy Mangan What makes us think were entitled to our pound of Kate Middletons flesh?
ell, at least Pippas bottom is getting a rest. The advent of Kate Middletons naked breasts in our lives has pushed all memories of lesser body parts of lesser siblings aside. Have you seen the pictures? You should. I am reliably informed that they show not one but two equally-sized lumps of human fat and tissue arranged across the chest area of a 30-year-old woman who is married to a man who might, one day, become king. So long as his subjects arent too busy to polish the coaches and hang out the bunting required because theyre starving to death on the spinning ball of dust the planet has become. So dont miss. Im very confused about the lack of support (insert own joke here) for Middleton. When the news emerged that the photos of her sunbathing topless at a private house were to be published, I assumed that people monarchist, republicans, male,
female, young, old anyone, in ld fact, except the most open and fervent of masturbators, who rbators, would presumably be too bly busy to articulate their e thoughts on the matter would be united in wholehearted condemnation. To my mind, the he equation here runs ns roughly: person doing something personal, nal, personally, in private + vate harming no one = no pictures taken and/or d/or published. But there are here deeper calculations at ns work. Apparently, y, because she signed up ed for a role in public life c when she got married, rried, Middleton forfeited ed her right to any kind nd of private and/or clothed one. Youd think this would require some sort
of formal relinquishment, for rather than just an unwritten bundling bundli into the wedding vows. No, sorry, love, its vo not n even in the small print. We just sort of p assumed, yknow Love, honour, obediently get your tits out for the nation on a slow news day, yeah? Id advise some sort of codicil to the marriage certicate if Harry ever c ties the knot. It can be t sealed with his own s bum-stamp, of course. b There also seems to be an additional feeling that, th because Middleton is part of a relatively old-fashioned-looking old-fas partnership, and her main job partner is not to run her own start-up business, but to look nice in conservative outts, smile conservat kindly and have lovely hair in challenging climates, she has surrendered the right to be treated
with ordinary respect. I have read several articles, including ones by female writers, suggesting that because Middleton is or they believe her to be a subservient wife, she cannot complain when the rest of the world treats her as their chattel, too. This would be bunkum even if it were based on the fact of, rather than the perception of, her wifely deference. That it is based on the latter makes it seven dierent types of dishonest. A further variant of this sense of ownership exists and was more fully expressed during the Week of Harrys Buttocks. This says that when someone benets from the Sovereign Grant, we are entitled, almost literally, to our pound of esh whenever and from wherever we want. Of course it doesnt. Monarchy is absurd, yes, but until the revolution, our 70-odd pence a year each entitles us to a bit of waving, top-notch frame handbag- or gold epaulette-spotting, and thats it. The Middletonian mammaries are still nobodys business but her own.
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Sheridan Smith The worst thing anyones said to me? No one will love you with all your flaws
Sheridan Smith, 31, was born in Lincolnshire. As a teenager, she was a member of the National Youth Music Theatre. Last year, she won an Olivier for her performance in the stage musical Legally Blonde, and this year was awarded another for Terence Rattigans Flare Path. Recent lm credits include Hysteria, Tower Block and Quartet, directed by Dustin Homan. She is in Hedda Gabler at the Old Vic in London until 10 November. When were you happiest? Whenever Im with loved ones. What is your greatest fear? Having lost my brother Julian when I was younger, I dread the thought of those feelings again. What is your earliest memory? Singing with my parents theyre a country and western duo and I sometimes performed with them. Which living person do you most admire and why? Dolly Parton she worked her way up from nothing. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? Im very insecure. What is the trait you most deplore in others? Lack of compassion. Property aside, whats the most expensive thing youve bought? I bought my mum, dad and brother Damian a car each. What is your most treasured possession? My three dogs. What would your super power be? Id like to rescue people in trouble, like Superman. What do you most dislike about your appearance? How long have you got? Who would play you in the lm of your life? Kathy Burke I love her. She has the ability to make you laugh and cry.
QA
&
What is your most unappealing habit? I pull my eyelashes when Im tired or thinking its a nervous thing. What would be your fancy dress costume of choice? I always go either as Dolly Parton or Dorothy from The Wizard Of Oz. What is the worst thing anyones said to you? No one will love you with all your aws. What is your guiltiest pleasure? Junk food. To whom would you most like to say sorry and why? Someone whose heart I broke. What does love feel like? Amazing, obviously, but you feel exposed and vulnerable too. Have you ever said I love you and not meant it? Probably. But I never would again. If you could edit your past, what would you change? Id bring my brother back. If you could go back in time, where would you go? To 1890, to feel how Hedda Gabler mustve felt. What a stagey answer! How do you relax? I chill out with my dogs and watch David Attenborough documentaries. What single thing would improve the quality of your life? A family of my own, I guess, though it terries me. What do you consider your greatest achievement? Hopefully being a good daughter and sister. What keeps you awake at night? Fear. What song would you like played at your funeral? Were o to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz! How would you like to be remembered? She had a go. Rosanna Greenstreet
THOMAS BUTLER FOR THE GUARDIAN
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Experience I lost the power of language
hat morning, I got the train as always. I was a publishing director and was looking forward to reading my newspaper, as usual. I would always turn to the cryptic crossword, but that day it didnt make any sense. Id been doing it for 30-odd years, but trying to read this one was like treading through treacle: incredibly slow and hard. I thought I must be tired. At the oce, I sat down, turned on my computer and found I couldnt read the message on the screen. I said to my assistant, This is strange, I cant make my computer work, and she started laughing. Although I had no idea at the time, I was speaking gibberish. Eventually, worried colleagues contacted my wife, Beth, and she drove me straight to hospital. There, conrmation came that Id had a stroke in the part of my brain that deals with communication. I was now suering from aphasia, a condition that means its dicult or impossibe to receive and produce language. When Beth asked the consultant how long it would take for me to get better, he replied, How long is a piece of string? Over that rst day, I got progressively worse. I couldnt understand what people were saying; I couldnt speak intelligibly; I couldnt read or write. A couple of nights later, I had to go to the loo and realised I couldnt read the signs on the doors. That was the rst time I thought, Christ, this is serious. It was the only time I cried. I was back at home a week later, and my goal was to get better and return to work in a couple of months. I started seeing a speech therapist three times a week, and was given homework to help rebuild my vocabulary and grammer.
Id look at simple pictures and try to describe them as my mind wandered round and round in the darkness, looking for words. Apart from being incredibly tired, and sleeping for hours and hours, I felt healthy. But I was deeply confused. Sitting around the table with my wife and children, all I could hear was a babble of noise. I couldnt separate sounds, be it a dog barking outside, music in the background or my wife talking to me. It was hugely frustrating. After a month, my own
speech became functional Could you pass the salt? Shall we go for a walk? but I couldnt have a conversation. I couldnt read the newspaper. When I sat down to my favourite television programme, The Sopranos, I couldnt understand a thing. I felt isolated. People at work were fantastically supportive, but as the months passed it became clear I wasnt going to be able to go back to my old job. I still couldnt read properly, or have a phone conversation. The phrase
that kept going through my mind was: damaged goods. For 25 years, I had dened myself as a publisher. I was used to a busy day of meetings, and bringing three manuscripts home with me each night. I enjoyed colleagues, I enjoyed working with writers and the status Id had. I loved reading books and the sustenance of new ideas. I didnt feel ready to say goodbye to my old self. There were times when I felt incredibly angry. In the darkest months, I devoted myself to trying. I would spend hours writing a description of something simple like a pencil, which would run over two pages. I couldnt manage novels or newspapers, so I tried reading poetry, and found the shorter lines less overwhelming. My speech came back, and I learned how to read again, albeit much more slowly. I also learned patience, and the ability to zone out of conversations when I couldnt keep up. I spent more time outside, looking after our garden, and eventually got a job a couple of days a week at a nursery. I allowed myself to slow down, and started to enjoy it. Gradually, I sloughed o my old skin. I grieved the past, its passing and its absence, and started to come to terms with it. Now, 10 years later, I look after my grandson a day a week, and my relationship with my family is deeper than ever. We have learned to be very patient with each other. If youd asked me 15 years ago to rank the importance of the things in my life I might have said family, but in truth my all-consuming job was up there as well. Im no longer a high-achieving publisher or someone who reads 10 books a week. Im a family man and gardener with aphasia, and if I read 10 books a year, thats pretty good. Andy McKillop Do you have an experience to share? Email experience@guardian.co.uk
JONATHAN BIRCH FOR THE GUARDIAN
AS TOLD TO BECKY BARNICOAT
The drugs dont work The doctors prescribing them dont know that. Nor do their patients. The manufacturers know full well, but theyre not telling. Ben Goldacre investigates
Reboxetine is a drug I have prescribed. Other drugs had done nothing for my patient, so we wanted to try something new. Id read the trial data before I wrote the prescription, and found only well-designed, fair tests, with overwhelmingly positive results. Reboxetine was better than a placebo, and as good as any other antidepressant in head-to-head comparisons. Its approved for use by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (the MHRA), which governs all drugs in the UK. Millions of doses are prescribed every year, around the world. Reboxetine was clearly a safe and eective treatment. The patient and I discussed the evidence briey, and agreed it was the right treatment to try next. I signed a prescription. But we had both been misled. In October 2010, a group of researchers was nally able to bring together all the data that had ever been collected on reboxetine, both from trials that were published and from those that had never appeared in academic papers. When all this trial data was put together, it produced a shocking picture. Seven trials had been conducted comparing reboxetine against a placebo. Only one, conducted in 254 patients, had a neat, positive result, and that one was published in an
academic journal, for doctors and researchers to read. But six more trials were conducted, in almost 10 times as many patients. All of them showed that reboxetine was no better than a dummy sugar pill. None of these trials was published. I had no idea they existed. It got worse. The trials comparing reboxetine against other drugs showed exactly the same picture: three small studies, 507 patients in total, showed that reboxetine was just as good as any other drug. They were all published. But 1,657 patients worth of data was left unpublished, and this unpublished data showed that patients on reboxetine did worse than those on other drugs. If all this wasnt bad enough, there was also the side-eects data. The drug looked ne in the trials that appeared in the academic literature; but when we saw the unpublished studies, it turned out that patients were more likely to have side-eects, more likely to drop out of taking the drug and more likely to withdraw from the trial because of side-eects, if they were taking reboxetine rather than one of its competitors. I did everything a doctor is supposed to do. I read all the papers, I critically appraised them, I understood them, I discussed them with the patient and we made a decision together,
PHOTOGRAPH: GETTY IMAGES. DIGITAL MANIPULATION: PHIL PARTRIDGE FOR GNM IMAGING
based on the evidence. In the published data, reboxetine was a safe and eective drug. In reality, it was no better than a sugar pill and, worse, it does more harm than good. As a doctor, I did something that, on the balance of all the evidence, harmed my patient, simply because unattering data was left unpublished. Nobody broke any law in that situation, reboxetine is still on the market and the system that allowed all this to happen is still in play, for all drugs, in all countries in the world. Negative data goes missing, for all treatments, in all areas of science. The regulators and professional bodies we would reasonably expect to stamp out such practices have failed us. These problems have been protected from public scrutiny because theyre too complex to capture in a soundbite. This is why theyve gone unxed by politicians, at least to some extent; but its also why it takes detail to explain. The people you should have been able to trust to x these problems have failed you, and because you have to understand a problem properly in order to x it, there are some things you need to know. Drugs are tested by the people who manufacture them, in poorly designed trials, on hopelessly small numbers of weird, unrepresentative patients, and analysed using techniques that are awed by design, in such a way that they exaggerate the benets of treatments. Unsurprisingly, these trials tend to produce results that favour the manufacturer. When trials throw up results that companies dont like, they are perfectly entitled to hide them from doctors and patients, so we only ever see a distorted picture of any drugs true eects. Regulators see most of the trial data, but only from early on in a drugs life, and even then they dont give this data to doctors or patients, or even to other parts of government. This distorted evidence is then communicated and applied in a distorted fashion. In their 40 years of practice after leaving
medical school, doctors hear about what works ad hoc, from sales reps, colleagues and journals. But those colleagues can be in the pay of drug companies often undisclosed and the journals are, too. And so are the patient groups. And nally, academic papers, which everyone thinks of as objective, are often covertly planned and written by people who work directly for the companies, without disclosure. Sometimes whole academic journals are owned outright by one drug company. Aside from all this, for several of the most important and enduring problems in medicine, we have no idea what the best treatment is, because its not in anyones nancial interest to conduct any trials at all. Now, on to the details. In 2010, researchers from Harvard and Toronto found all the trials looking at ve major classes of drug antidepressants, ulcer drugs and so on then measured two key features: were they positive, and were they funded by industry? They found more than 500 trials in total: 85% of the industry-funded studies were positive, but only 50% of the government-funded trials were. In 2007, researchers looked at every published trial that set out to explore the benets of a statin. These cholesterol-lowering drugs reduce your risk of having a heart attack and are prescribed in very large quantities. This study found 192 trials in total, either comparing one statin against another, or comparing a statin against a dierent kind of treatment. They found that industryfunded trials were 20 times more likely to give results favouring the test drug. These are frightening results, but they come from individual studies. So lets consider systematic reviews into this area. In 2003, two were published. They took all the studies ever published that looked at whether industry funding is associated with pro-industry results, and both found that industry-funded trials were,
overall, about four times more likely to report positive results. A further review in 2007 looked at the new studies in the intervening four years: it found 20 more pieces of work, and all but two showed that industry-sponsored trials were more likely to report attering results. It turns out that this pattern persists even when you move away from published academic papers and look instead at trial reports from academic conferences. James Fries and Eswar Krishnan, at the Stanford University School of Medicine in California, studied all the research abstracts presented at the 2001 American College of Rheumatology meetings which reported any kind of trial and acknowledged industry sponsorship, in order to nd out what proportion had results that favoured the sponsors drug. In general, the results section of an academic paper is extensive: the raw numbers are given for each outcome, and for each possible causal factor, but not just as raw gures. The ranges are given, subgroups are explored, statistical tests conducted, and each detail is described in table form, and in shorter narrative form in the text. This lengthy process is usually spread over several pages. In Fries and Krishnan (2004), this level of detail was unnecessary. The results section is a single, simple and I like to imagine fairly passive-aggressive sentence: The results from every randomised controlled trial (45 out of 45) favoured the drug of the sponsor. How does this happen? How do industrysponsored trials almost always manage to get a positive result? Sometimes trials are awed by design. You can compare your new drug with something you know to be rubbish an existing drug at an inadequate dose, perhaps, or a placebo sugar pill that does almost nothing. You can choose your patients very carefully, so they are more likely to get better on your treatment. You can peek at the results halfway through, and
Drugs are tested by their manufacturers, in poorly designed trials, on hopelessly small numbers of weird, unrepresentative patients, and analysed using techniques that exaggerate the benefits
stop your trial early if they look good. But p after all these methodological quirks comes r one very simple insult to the integrity of the data. Sometimes, drug he companies conduct lots of trials, and mpanies when they see that the results are en unattering, they simply fail to publish them. attering, Because researchers are free to bury any ecause result they please, patients are exposed to harm ult on a staggering scale throughout the whole of medicine. Doctors can have no idea about the true eects of the treatments they give. Does this drug really work best, or have I simply been deprived of half the data? No one can tell. Is this expensive drug worth the money, or has the data simply been massaged? No one can tell. Will this drug kill patients? Is there any evidence that its dangerous? No one can tell. This is a bizarre situation to arise in medicine, a discipline in which everything is supposed to be based on evidence. And this data is withheld from everyone in medicine, from top to bottom. Nice, for example, is the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, created by the British government to conduct careful, unbiased summaries of all the evidence on new treatments. It is unable either to identify or to access data on a drugs eectiveness thats been withheld by researchers or companies: Nice has no more legal right to that data than you or I do, even though it is making decisions about eectiveness, and cost-eectiveness, on behalf of the NHS, for millions of people. In any sensible world, when researchers are conducting trials on a new tablet for a drug company, for example, wed expect universal contracts, making it clear that all researchers are obliged to publish their results, and that industry sponsors which have a huge interest in positive results must have no control over the data. But, despite everything we know about industryfunded research being systematically biased, this does not happen. In fact, the opposite is true: it is
entirely normal for researchers and academics condu conducting industry-funded trials to sign con contracts subjecting them to gagging clause that forbid them to clauses publish, discuss or analyse data from their trials without the permission of the funder. permiss This is such a secretive a shameful situation and that even trying to document it in public can be docum a fraught business. In 2006, a paper was 200 published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Jama), one of the biggest medical journals in the world, describing how common it was for researchers doing industry-funded trials to have these kinds of constraints placed on their right to publish the results. The study was conducted by the Nordic Cochrane Centre and it looked at all the trials given approval to go ahead in Copenhagen and Frederiksberg. (If youre wondering why these two cities were chosen, it was simply a matter of practicality: the researchers applied elsewhere without success, and were specically refused access to data in the UK.) These trials were overwhelmingly sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry (98%) and the rules governing the management of the results tell a story that walks the now familiar line between frightening and absurd. For 16 of the 44 trials, the sponsoring company got to see the data as it accumulated, and in a further 16 it had the right to stop the trial at any time, for any reason. This means that a company can see if a trial is going against it, and can interfere as it progresses, distorting the results. Even if the study was allowed to nish, the data could still be suppressed: there were constraints on publication rights in 40 of the 44 trials, and in half of them the contracts specically stated that the sponsor either owned the data outright (what about the patients, you might say?), or needed to approve the nal publication, or both. None of these restrictions was mentioned in any of the published papers.
When the paper describing this situation was published in Jama, Lif, the Danish pharmaceutical industry association, responded by announcing, in the Journal of the Danish Medical Association, that it was both shaken and enraged about the criticism, that could not be recognised. It demanded an investigation of the scientists, though it failed to say by whom or of what. Lif then wrote to the Danish Committee on Scientic Dishonesty, accusing the Cochrane researchers of scientic misconduct. We cant see the letter, but the researchers say the allegations were extremely serious they were accused of deliberately distorting the data but vague, and without documents or evidence to back them up. Nonetheless, the investigation went on for a year. Peter Gtzsche, director of the Cochrane Centre, told the British Medical Journal that only Lifs third letter, 10 months into this process, made specic allegations that could be investigated by the committee. Two months after that, the charges were dismissed. The Cochrane researchers had done nothing wrong. But before they were cleared, Lif copied the letters alleging scientic dishonesty to the hospital where four of them worked, and to the management organisation running that hospital, and sent similar letters to the Danish medical association, the ministry of health, the ministry of science and so on. Gtzsche and his colleagues felt intimidated and harassed by Lifs behaviour. Lif continued to insist that the researchers were guilty of misconduct even after the investigation was completed. Paroxetine is a commonly used antidepressant, from the class of drugs known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors or SSRIs. Its also a good example of how companies have exploited our long-standing permissiveness about missing trials, and found loopholes in our inadequate regulations on trial disclosure. To understand why, we rst need to go
through a quirk of the licensing process. Drugs do not simply come on to the market for use in all medical conditions: for any specic use of any drug, in any specic disease, you need a separate marketing authorisation. So a drug might be licensed to treat ovarian cancer, for example, but not breast cancer. That doesnt mean the drug doesnt work in breast cancer. There might well be some evidence that its great for treating that disease, too, but maybe the company hasnt gone to the trouble and expense of getting a formal marketing authorisation for that specic use. Doctors can still go ahead and prescribe it for breast cancer, if they want, because the drug is available for prescription, it probably works, and there are boxes of it sitting in pharmacies waiting to go out. In this situation, the doctor will be prescribing the drug legally, but o-label. Now, it turns out that the use of a drug in children is treated as a separate marketing authorisation from its use in adults. This makes sense in many cases, because children can respond to drugs in very dierent ways and so research needs to be done in children separately. But getting a licence for a specic use is an arduous business, requiring lots of paperwork and some specic studies. Often, this will be so expensive that companies will not bother to get a licence specically to market a drug for use in children, because that market is usually much smaller. So it is not unusual for a drug to be licensed for use in adults but then prescribed for children. Regulators have recognised that this is a problem, so recently they have started to oer incentives for companies to conduct more research and formally seek these licences. When GlaxoSmithKline applied for a marketing authorisation in children for paroxetine, an extraordinary situation came to light, triggering the longest investigation in the history of UK drugs regulation. Between 1994 and 2002, GSK
conducted nine trials of paroxetine in children. The rst two failed to show any benet, but the company made no attempt to inform anyone of this by changing the drug label that is sent to all doctors and patients. In fact, after these trials were completed, an internal company management document stated: It would be commercially unacceptable to include a statement that ecacy had not been demonstrated, as this would undermine the prole of paroxetine. In the year after this secret internal memo, 32,000 prescriptions were issued to children for paroxetine in the UK alone: so, while the company knew the drug didnt work in children, it was in no hurry to tell doctors that, despite knowing that large numbers of children were taking it. More trials were conducted over the coming years nine in total and none showed that the drug was eective at treating depression in children. It gets much worse than that. These children werent simply receiving a drug that the company knew to be ineective for them; they were also being exposed to side-eects. This should be self-evident, since any eective treatment will have some side-eects, and doctors factor this in, alongside the benets (which in this case were nonexistent). But nobody knew how bad these side-eects were, because the company didnt tell doctors, or patients, or even the regulator about the worrying safety data from its trials. This was because of a loophole: you have to tell the regulator only about side-eects reported in studies looking at the specic uses for which the drug has a marketing authorisation. Because the use of paroxetine in children was o-label, GSK had no legal obligation to tell anyone about what it had found. People had worried for a long time that paroxetine might increase the risk of suicide, though that is quite a dicult side-eect to detect in an antidepressant. In February 2003,
GSK spontaneously sent the MHRA a package of information on the risk of suicide on paroxetine, containing some analyses done in 2002 from adverse-event data in trials the company had held, going back a decade. This analysis showed that there was no increased risk of suicide. But it was misleading: although it was unclear at the time, data from trials in children had been mixed in with data from trials in adults, which had vastly greater numbers of participants. As a result, any sign of increased suicide risk among children on paroxetine had been completely diluted away. Later in 2003, GSK had a meeting with the MHRA to discuss another issue involving paroxetine. At the end of this meeting, the GSK representatives gave out a brieng document, explaining that the company was planning to apply later that year for a specic marketing authorisation to use paroxetine in children. They mentioned, while handing out the document, that the MHRA might wish to bear in mind a safety concern the company had noted: an increased risk of suicide among children with depression who received paroxetine, compared with those on dummy placebo pills. This was vitally important side-eect data, being presented, after an astonishing delay, casually, through an entirely inappropriate and unocial channel. Although the data was given to completely the wrong team, the MHRA sta present at this meeting had the wit to spot that this was an important new problem. A urry of activity followed: analyses were done, and within one month a letter was sent to all doctors advising them not to prescribe paroxetine to patients under the age of 18. How is it possible that our systems for getting data from companies are so poor, they can simply withhold vitally important information showing that a drug is not only ineective, but actively dangerous? Because the regulations contain
Does this drug really work or will it kill? Is there any evidence that its dangerous? No one can tell Because researchers are free to bury any result they please, patients are exposed to harm on a staggering scale
While the company knew the drug didnt work in children, it was in no hurry to tell doctors that. Worse, nobody knew how bad the side-effects were because it didnt reveal its worrying safety data
ridiculous loopholes, and its dismal to see how GSK cheerfully exploited them: when the investigation was published in 2008, it concluded that what the company had done withholding important data about safety and eectiveness that doctors and patients clearly needed to see was plainly unethical, and put children around the world at risk; but our laws are so weak that GSK could not be charged with any crime. After this episode, the MHRA and EU changed some of their regulations, though not adequately. They created an obligation for companies to hand over safety data for uses of a drug outside its marketing authorisation; but ridiculously, for example, trials conducted outside the EU were still exempt. Some of the trials GSK conducted were published in part, but that is obviously not enough: we already know that if we see only a biased sample of the data, we are misled. But we also need all the data for the more simple reason that we need lots of data: safety signals are often weak, subtle and dicult to detect. In the case of paroxetine, the dangers became apparent only when the adverse events from all of the trials were pooled and analysed together. That leads us to the second obvious aw in the current system: the results of these trials are given in secret to the regulator, which then sits and quietly makes a decision. This is the opposite of science, which is reliable only because everyone shows their working, explains how they know that something is eective or safe, shares their methods and results, and allows others to decide if they agree with the way in which the data was processed and analysed. Yet for the safety and ecacy of drugs, we allow it to happen behind closed doors, because drug companies have decided that they want to share their trial results discretely with the regulators. So the most important job in evidence-based medicine is carried out alone and in secret. And regulators are not infallible, as we shall see.
Rosiglitazone was rst marketed in 1999. In that rst year, Dr John Buse from the University of North Carolina discussed an increased risk of heart problems at a pair of academic meetings. The drugs manufacturer, GSK, made direct contact in an attempt to silence him, then moved on to his head of department. Buse felt pressured to sign various legal documents. To cut a long story short, after wading through documents for several months, in 2007 the US Senate committee on nance released a report describing the treatment of Buse as intimidation. But we are more concerned with the safety and ecacy data. In 2003 the Uppsala drug monitoring group of the World Health Organisation contacted GSK about an unusually large number of spontaneous reports associating rosiglitazone with heart problems. GSK conducted two internal meta-analyses of its own data on this, in 2005 and 2006. These showed that the risk was real, but although both GSK and the FDA had these results, neither made any public statement about them, and they were not published until 2008. During this delay, vast numbers of patients were exposed to the drug, but doctors and patients learned about this serious problem only in 2007, when cardiologist Professor Steve Nissen and colleagues published a landmark metaanalysis. This showed a 43% increase in the risk of heart problems in patients on rosiglitazone. Since people with diabetes are already at increased risk of heart problems, and the whole point of treating diabetes is to reduce this risk, that nding was big potatoes. Nissens ndings were conrmed in later work, and in 2010 the drug was either taken o the market or restricted, all around the world. Now, my argument is not that this drug should have been banned sooner because, as perverse as it sounds, doctors do often need inferior drugs for use as a last resort. For example, a patient may develop idiosyncratic side-eects on the most
eective pills and be unable to take them any longer. Once this has happened, it may be worth trying a less eective drug if it is at least better than nothing. The concern is that these discussions happened with the data locked behind closed doors, visible only to regulators. In fact, Nissens analysis could only be done at all because of a very unusual court judgment. In 2004, when GSK was caught out withholding data showing evidence of serious side-eects from paroxetine in children, their bad behaviour resulted in a US court case over allegations of fraud, the settlement of which, alongside a signicant payout, required GSK to commit to posting clinical trial results on a public website. Nissen used the rosiglitazone data, when it became available, and found worrying signs of harm, which they then published to doctors something the regulators had never done, despite having the information years earlier. If this information had all been freely available from the start, regulators might have felt a little more anxious about their decisions but, crucially, doctors and patients could have disagreed with them and made informed choices. This is why we need wider access to all trial reports, for all medicines. Missing data poisons the well for everybody. If proper trials are never done, if trials with negative results are withheld, then we simply cannot know the true eects of the treatments we use. Evidence in medicine is not an abstract academic preoccupation. When we are fed bad data, we make the wrong decisions, inicting unnecessary pain and suering, and death, on people just like us This is an edited extract from Bad Pharma, by Ben Goldacre, published next week by Fourth Estate at 13.99. To order a copy for 11.19, including UK mainland p&p, call 0330 333 6846, or go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop.
Fancy a flutter?
In rougher parts of Edinburgh, where drugs and gangs are rife, an unlikely passion is thriving. Simon Hattenstone meets the pigeonfancying doomen and the photographer Robert Ormerod, who is documenting their lives
Dooman Paul Smith lost his love of ying pigeons after his son was stabbed to death six years ago, but it has now returned. Sinead Wilson (far left) is one of the few doowomen and girls
Everything about doomen is fascinating, photographer Robert Ormerod says the passion, the lifestyle, the battles, the birds
Its the buzz, Paul Smith says. When you capture somebody elses bird, you get a buzz. Thats the whole point. Smith is a dooman. Doo is a Scottish word for male pigeon, and doomen keep pigeons. But thats only the half of it. Doomen also keep other peoples pigeons. The pigeons are a special type, known as horseman thief pouters. They look quite dierent from your average feral pigeon prettier, prouder, more erect, as if standing to attention at a passing-out parade. They are often bleached peroxide-blond and pu their chests out like Orson Welles in his heyday. Male and female pouters are hot, and they know it they attract other pouters back to their hut, and thats where the doomen come in. As
soon as their pigeon lands on the roof with its prospective new partner, the dooman whips down the net and bags the bird. The bird is then legitimately theirs and is often sold on. Its kidnapping as competition. Traditional pigeon fanciers often regard doomen as pirates. Flying doos is a working-class sport in Scotland. Smith lives in Muirhouse, a part of Edinburgh far removed from the cosy intellectualism of the festival. Doomen tend to live tough, hard-drinking, sometimes lawless lives. While ying doos does not necessarily keep them on the straight and narrow, it does keep them on a path that is a bit straighter and narrower than it might have been. Its 9am on a hot Sunday in August, and
Smith is hungover. Hes looking towards the sky and its hurting his eyes. He was on the beer last night, he says, as he pours us coee. My earliest memory is of my grandad ying them 40 years ago. He and my dad used to take me to the wee pet shop, and the guy used to wear a long white coat, like a doctor. Back then, you could buy pigeons for 50p. Thats how I got hooked. The most hes paid for a pigeon is 75. Smith says human skill plays a part in his sport, but most of it is down to the bird. There are birds who will catch a hen when they meet it, nae trouble, and there are other birds Ive had for ve years who have never caught a single pigeon. He opens the hut and shows me his favourite, a Dutch bird he calls the Tillinator plump and
Fellow doomen can be friendly, but there is always an intense rivalry. Do they ever congratulate each other when a rival has lured away a good bird? Never
primped. He takes a hen out of her cage and holds it out towards the Tillinator, to demonstrate his reaction. They blow themselves up to try to make themselves the Don Juan of the pigeon world. Sure enough, the Tillinators chest becomes even more plumped. The birds are kept from mating for as long as possible before being released in order to build up steam. Thats the one theyre all trying to catch, but naebody can catch him. When he gets a hen, hes so sharp, so quick. How many birds has the Tillinator caught? About 25. How long has he had him? Five years. You need to be patient in the doo business. Smith says hes out there ying two to three hours a night, maybe all day at the weekend, and sometimes he can go weeks without a sni of
a pigeon. There are few doowomen or girls. It has always been regarded as a mans sport, and every man has a story about the domestic strife the birds have caused. Smith says his grandmother used to throw pigeons out of the window when his grandad kept them in the house. Nowadays, Smiths own wife tells him he cares more for his pigeons than he does for her. Is it true? Probably 50%. The pigeons never give me grief! He laughs. If its a nice day, are you going to sit in there, or stand outside, y your birds and get a tan? Smith talks about his relationship with fellow doomen they can be friendly, but there is always an intense rivalry. Do they ever congratulate each other when a rival has lured away a good bird? Pf! Never heard of that yet. Never. Six years ago, Smiths teenage son Kevin was
murdered stabbed by three young men after they stole his scooter. When Kevin died, Smith lost interest in his pigeons. I couldnt feed them my brother came down and fed them for me. I couldnt do anything. It takes time, and it never goes away. Now at least, he says, his love of ying has returned. All those hours outside with the birds is thinking time. Robert Ormerod started taking photographs of doomen more than a year ago. Everything about them is fascinating, he says the passion, the lifestyle, the battles, the birds themselves. Many doomen live unpredictable lives and are hard to track down they might agree to a photograph one day and not want to know you the next. Ormerod is driving us to the Niddrie estate, which became infamous for gangs and knife crime,
You want your children to have some sort of thing, because theres absolutely nothing for children to do here, says Iain Wilson (top, left)
and has now been largely demolished. We are here to speak to two boys he has photographed one 18-year-old who already has two children, and his younger brother, whos nine. Ormerod warns about their two huge dogs, which can be intimidating. As we arrive at the estate, a football smashes into the boot of the car. Only the nine-year-old is home, but he doesnt want to talk to us today and we are sent packing. Another young man says he will talk only for money. So we drive to the south of Edinburgh, to meet 56-year-old Iain Wilson and his daughter, Sinead. Its 11am and he oers me a beer. Wilson is a plumber and runs one of the two shops operating out of Edinburgh where doomen trade pigeons. Flying doos, he says, is an addiction. I caught a curse. Its like smoking. You cannae give them up.
Which is more dangerous? The same degree, he says. The pigeons produce dust that is easily inhaled. Ive had part of one of my lungs removed because of dust-related injuries. His obsession with the birds dates back to his boyhood. My mother and father had nae love of animals at all, so, much to their annoyance, I used to bring injured pigeons home. How did they react? They looked at it as a hobby and were relieved I wasnt going about the streets throwing stones at windows. Does he think hed have got into trouble otherwise? Probably, aye. I had good friends, not hardened criminals; wed just do a wee bit of shoplifting now and then. Why was he so taken with pigeons? I was fascinated by something that could y that comes back to you. You get an anity with them.
Certainly with the horseman. I used to have a pigeon that followed me all the way to the pub. He feeds them only the best food, he says. Sinead, show Simon. Sinead returns with a bucket of food that could pass for nibbles at an upmarket party. Sunower seeds, barley, maize, maple peas, wheat, barley I used to eat it when I was waiting for the racing pigeons. So they get the best grub; no rubbish. As he talks, he keeps an eye on the sky and catches sight of a hen coming in to land. Bop. Bohop bhop. Ooop. Cooo, he warbles gently. Can you be a good dooman without talking to the pigeons? No, youve got to talk the language. Youve got tae have some anity with the birds. Good pigeons respond. These days its Sinead who plays Florence
I caught a curse. Its like smoking. You cannae give them up
Nightingale to hurt birds. If my mates nd an injured pigeon, theyll always bring it to me because I cannae turn it away, she says. They wouldnae take it to my dad, though, because hed kill it. Hes only interested in pigeons who work. Ill be perfectly honest with you, Wilson says. Im brutal with killing pigeons. If pigeons dinnae perform for you, youve got to kill them. Either that or youd have thousands. I either pull their neck or tap them on the back of the head. He hopes that if Sinead becomes a fully-edged doogirl, it will keep her out of trouble. Well, it doesnt matter if its pigeons or whatever you want your children to have some sort of thing, because theres absolutely nothing for children to do here. It is quite a drugs-dominated place, a lot of coke. Very high unemployment. Everybody
that ies in this scheme beyond me and my son dinnae work. He pauses. Mind you, he says, you can get into plenty of trouble ying doos. Sinead smiles knowingly and says nothing. In the old days, thered be murder, Wilson continues. Huts burnt down. Glasgow was the worst. You strive for years to get good pigeons, then if someone comes into your hut and steals them, it makes your blood boil. Once you get a good pigeon, everybody knows about it. Has he ever got into trouble over the birds? Touch wood Ive never had that scenario, because I think people know, were that to happen, thered be repercussions. The majority in the scheme are frightened of me. Physically frightened? Aye. Because hes tough? I dont know whether Im tough now, but I used to be. Im getting a bit old.
Ive hung up my gun belt. I mostly keep the peace. My son, hes a hot-headed one. Its funny, Wilson says, sometimes he wonders why he still dedicates so much of his life to the birds theres his lungs, the time, the money. The worst thing is that it brings out emotions that it shouldnt bring out. Such as? Anger. There are times you want to kick people around the street. I think it triggers o emotions that you wouldnt normally have in everyday life. Extreme emotions, aye. I could be sitting in the pub having a laugh. Instead, Im standing in this garden going o my head at the pigeons. So why does he keep doo-ying? Pure addiction. Aye, it ruins your life. Then he sees a pigeon coming in, smiles with relief, and welcomes it home with a warble
The worst that can happen is that everyone says, Thats shockingly bad back to wizards with you
Harry Potter sold millions and made her into one of the richest women in the world. Now JK Rowling has written her first book for grownups. But is the magic still there? Interview by Decca Aitkenhead Portraits by Spencer Murphy
K Rowlings new novel arrives with the high drama and state secrecy of a royal birth. Its due date is announced in February, and in April the disclosure of its title, The Casual Vacancy, makes international news. The release of the cover image in July commands headlines again, and Fleet Street commissions a design guru to deconstruct its inscrutable aesthetic, in search of clues as to what might lie within. Waterstones predicts the novel will be the bestselling ction title this year. Literary critics begin to publish preliminary reviews, revealing what they think they will think about a book they have not yet even read. I am required to sign more legal documents than would typically be involved in buying a house before I am allowed to read The Casual Vacancy, under tight security in the London oces of Little, Brown. Even the publishers have been forbidden to read it, and they relinquish the manuscript gingerly, reverently, as though handling a priceless Ming vase. Afterwards, I am instructed never to disclose the address of Rowlings Edinburgh oce where the interview will take place. The mere fact of the interview is deemed so newsworthy that Le Monde dispatches a reporter to investigate how it was secured. Its prospect begins to assume the mystique of an audience with Her Majesty except, of course, that Rowling is famously much, much richer than the Queen. In the 15 years since she published her rst Harry Potter, Rowling has become both universally known and almost unrecognisable. The scruy redhead who used to write in the cafes of Leith has slowly transformed into a glossy couture blonde, unknowable behind an impregnable sheen of wealth and control. Once a penniless single mother, she became the rst person on earth to make $1bn by writing
books, but her rare public appearances suggested a faint ice maiden quality, less Cinderella than Snow Queen. Sometimes she didnt appear to be enjoying the fairytale at all, complaining to Leveson of having had to hire privacy lawyers on more than 50 occasions, and suing a fan for writing an encyclopedia of Potter facts. The press began to hint at a coldly grandiose recluse. Famous people who appear incredibly controlling are generally one of two things: monstrous megalomaniacs, or unusually sane souls insulating themselves from insane circumstances. There is seldom much middle ground, and I nd out where Rowling belongs when her publicist calls an hour before were due to meet. I fear the worst. Is there going to be some ludicrous last-minute cloak-and-dagger demand? No, its just that Rowling has been stuck in her oce for ages and fancies a change of scene. Could we meet round the corner instead? I nd them in the lobby of a modest hotel. Surely were not going to talk here, in earshot of every passing guest? But Rowling is completely relaxed about this arrangement. Warm and animated, quick to laugh, she chatters so freely that her publicist gets jumpy and tells her to lower her voice. Am I speaking too loud? She doesnt look a bit concerned. Well, I cant get passionate and whisper! When I tell her I loved the book, her arms shoot up in celebration. Oh my God! Im so happy! Thats so amazing to hear. Thank you so much! Youve made me incredibly happy. Oh my God! Anyone listening would take her for a debut author, meeting her rst ever fan. In a way, thats what she is. Rowling has written seven Harry Potter books, and sold more than 450m copies, but her rst novel for adults is unlike them in every respect unless you count the location where the concept came
You dont expect the kind of problems wealth brings with it. You dont expect the pressure of it
JK Rowling with her husband, Neil Murray, in 2007. And in 2000, launching Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire, the fourth book in the series that changed her life
to her. Obviously I need to be in some form of vehicle to have a decent idea, she laughs. Having dreamed up Potter on a train, This time I was on a plane. And I thought: local election! And I just knew. I had that totally physical response you get to an idea that you know will work. Its a rush of adrenaline, its chemical. I had it with Harry Potter and I had it with this. So thats how I know. The story opens with the death of a parish councillor in the pretty West Country village of Pagford. Barry had grown up on a nearby council estate, the Fields, a squalid rural ghetto with which the more pious middle classes of Pagford have long lost patience. If they can ll his seat with one more councillor sympathetic to their disgust, theyll secure a majority vote to reassign responsibility for the Fields to a neighbouring council, and be rid of the wretched place for good. The pompous chairman assumes the seat will go to his son, a solicitor. Pitted against him are a bitterly cold GP and a deputy headmaster crippled by irreconcilable ambivalence towards his son, an unnervingly self-possessed adolescent whose subversion takes the unusual but highly eective form of telling the truth. His preoccupation with authenticity develops into a fascination with the Fields and its most notorious family, the Weedons. Terri Weedon is a prostitute, junkie and lifelong casualty of chilling abuse, struggling to stay clean to stop social services taking her three-year-old son, Robbie, into care. But methadone is a precarious substitute for heroin, and most of what passes for mothering falls to her teenage daughter, Krystal. Spirited and volatile, Krystal has known only one adult ally in her life Barry and his sudden death casts her dangerously adrift. When anonymous messages begin appearing on the parish council
website, exposing villagers secrets, Pagford unravels into a panic of paranoia, rage and tragedy. Pagford will be appallingly recognisable to anyone who has ever lived in a West Country village, but its clever comedy can also be read as a parable about national politics. Im interested in that drive, that rush to judgment, that is so prevalent in our society, Rowling says. We all know that pleasurable rush that comes from condemning, and in the short term its quite a satisfying thing to do, isnt it? But it requires obliviousness to the horrors suered by a family such as the Weedons, and the book satirises the ignorance of elites who assume to know whats best for everyone else. How many of us are able to expand our minds beyond our own personal experience? So many people, certainly people who sit around the cabinet table, say, Well, it worked for me or, This is how my father managed it these trite catchphrases and the idea that other people might have had such a dierent life experience that their choices and beliefs and behaviours would be completely dierent from your own seems to escape a lot of otherwise intelligent people. The poor are discussed as this homogeneous mash, like porridge. The idea that they might be individuals, and be where they are for very dierent, diverse reasons, again seems to escape some people. They talk about feckless teenage mothers looking for a council at. Well, how tragic is it that thats what someone regards as the height of security or safety? What would your life be like if thats the only possible path you can see for yourself? But I dont know if thats a question some people ask themselves. There has been a horribly familiar change of atmosphere [since the 2010 election], it feels to me a lot like it did in the early 90s, where theres been a bit of redistribution of benets and suddenly lone-parent families
are that little bit worse o. But its not a little bit when youre in that situation. Even a tenner a week can make such a vast, vast dierence. So, yeah, it does feel familiar. Though I started writing this ve years ago when we didnt have a coalition government, so its become maybe more relevant as Ive written. Like so many British novels, The Casual Vacancy is inescapably about class. Were a phenomenally snobby society, Rowling nods, and its such a rich seam. The middle class is so funny, its the class I know best, and its the class where you nd the most pretension, so thats what makes the middle classes so funny. The book is so funny I was halfway through before noticing that every character is, to a varying degree, monstrous. Written from multiple perspectives, the novel invites the reader into their heads, where internal logic helps make sense of what can look, from the outside, inexcusable. But Rowling waits a long time before leading us inside the Weedons minds, to reveal unspeakable traumas. The delay serves to amplify the shock, but runs the risk of showing only their dysfunction for so long that the reader might start to laugh at them. I was aware that a reader might think I was laughing at Krystal. And Im not. At all. Not for a second, Suddenly she is intently serious. One person who has read it said he found it very funny when Krystal told Robbie to eat his crisps before his Rolos. Well, I wasnt making a joke. At all. To me, that was quite a bleak moment. To me, its heartbreaking. To me, that makes me want to cry. So I suppose you can never know. But then, and she starts to smile, in some peoples eyes, Harry Potter was a book of the occult and devil worship, so I do know that you cant legislate for what readers will nd. Someone else told Rowling they felt sorry for her daughters friends, assuming they were the
GETTY IMAGES; REX
There is nothing on the business side that I wouldnt sacrifice in a heartbeat to have an extra couple of hours writing
inspiration for The Casual Vacancys teenagers. But I havent laid them bare, Ive laid my friends bare. Rowling grew up near the Forest of Dean in a community not unlike Pagford. And this was very much me vividly remembering what it was like to be a teenager, and it wasnt a particularly happy time in my life. In fact, you couldnt give me anything to make me go back to being a teenager. Never. No, I hated it. Her mother, a school lab technician, was diagnosed with MS when Rowling was 15. But it wasnt just that although that did colour it a lot. I just dont think I was very good at being young. She and her younger sister, Dianne, had a dicult relationship with their father, and Rowling couldnt wait to get out of there; she studied French and classics at Exeter University, went to work for Amnesty in London, lost her mother at 25 and moved abroad to teach English, returning at 28 with a six-month-old daughter, Jessica, following a short and catastrophic marriage to a Portuguese journalist. Broke, clinically depressed and suicidal, she moved to Edinburgh to be near her sister and survived on benets while writing the rst Harry Potter. After many rejections, the manuscript was bought by Bloomsbury for 2,500. Her editor advised Rowling to get a teaching job, the likelihood of her earning a living from childrens books being, in his view, decidedly remote. A 2007 documentary shows her 10 years later, soaring into a stratosphere of unimaginable wealth and fame. Watching it now, whats striking is the discrepancy between the happily-ever-after nale of her rags-to-riches miracle and the unhappiness etched upon her face. There is a hunted expression in her eyes, a wary tension in her features and a slightly brittle chippiness in her comments. None of this is discernible today, so I ask if it took time for the emotional DNA of unhappy early years to mutate and catch up with her new life. Well, it has now. But there was a denite lag. For a few years I did feel I was on a psychic treadmill, trying to keep up with where I was. Everything changed so rapidly, so strangely. I knew no one whod ever been in the public eye. I didnt know anyone anyone to whom I could turn and say, What do you do? So it was incredibly disorienting. Shed had therapy when at rock bottom while writing the rst Potter. And I had to do it again when my life was changing so suddenly and it really helped. Im a big fan of it, it helped me a lot. Her other salvation came with her second husband, Neil Murray, a doctor she married in 2001 and with whom she has a son of nine and a daughter aged seven. When I met Neil, it felt as if he stepped inside everything with me. He changed my life. But, prior to that, to be alone with it all, with a small child, was She searches for the word, and opts for understatement. Dicult. Sudden wealth was not a straightforward joy. You dont expect the kind of problems it brings with it. I am so grateful for what happened that this should not be taken in any way as a whine, but you dont expect the pressure of it, in the sense of being bombarded by requests. I felt that I had to solve everyones problems. I was hit by this tsunami of demands. I felt overwhelmed. And I was really worried that I would mess up. Having always longed to be a writer, she now found herself in charge of a business empire stretching all the way to Hollywood, as the Harry Potter lms began smashing box oce records. And its a real bore. Should I be more diplomatic? Oh, I dont care. No, there is literally nothing on the business side that I wouldnt sacrice in a heartbeat to have an extra couple of hours writing. Nothing. That sounds hideously ungrateful because its made me an awful lot of money, and Im very grateful for that. But its not
SPENCER MURPHY FOR THE GUARDIAN
something that interests me, and there have been lots of opportunities to do things that make more money, and Ive said no. Advertisers were forever oering fortunes to use Potter characters, and McDonalds wanted to sell Harry Potter Happy Meals, but all to no avail. I just hate meetings. Though its true that once youve made a lot of money people around you might be full of ideas about ways to make lots more money and might be disappointed that you dont want to seize every opportunity to do so. Has her accountant ever suggested Jimmy Carrstyle tax avoidance schemes? She looks appalled. No! God, no, hes not that kind of accountant. No. No ones ever put that kind of thing to me but then, they wouldnt, they just wouldnt. I do take a pretty dim view of those things. I actually chose my accountant because he said to me, You have to make a fundamental decision. You have to choose whether you organise your money around your life or your life around your money. When I ask her to name the worst thing about her life today, she cant think of anything. After a long pause, The very worst thing right now, this second, is that weve got no food in the fridge what are we going to have for dinner tonight? Big deal. But no, I cant think of anything dreadful in my life. And fame has had its upsides; meeting Barack Obama and the legendary Democrat speechwriter Bob Shrum were the two greatest starstruck moments of her life. She has only ever once resorted to a disguise in order to go out without being recognised, but that was to buy her wedding dress. I just wanted to be able to get married to Neil without any rubbish happening. She wont say what the disguise was In case, she grins, I need to use it again. Shes stopped minding that people get her name wrong (it rhymes with bowling, not howling), and quite likes being JK as a writer and Jo in real life.
Jo the mother is where I want to be the most private. She is not so private that she wont say which way shell vote in the Scottish referendum Im pro union and seems sanguine about the speculation that surrounds her every public move. The endless rumours that The Casual Vacancy would be a crime thriller just made her laugh. It was all started by Ian Rankin. Ian and I did once have a conversation in which he rightly said the Potter novels are in the main whodunnits, so we were talking about that, and that led to him telling everyone that I was writing a crime novel, which was never the case. Whodunnits are her literary guilty pleasure I love a good Dorothy L Sayers but then again, she doesnt really feel guilty about that: Theres no shame in a Dorothy. She hasnt read Fifty Shades Of Grey, because I promised my editor I wouldnt. She doesnt look as if she feels shes missing out. Not wildly, she agrees drily. Her emotional world is now, she thinks, nally reconciled to her external reality. In the end you reach a very healthy point, I think, where you disconnect. You really do. And I am there. And its been glorious for ve years, its been thrilling, the sheer freedom. I am the freest author in the world. I can do whatever the hell I like. My bills are paid we all know I can pay my bills I was under contract to no one, and the feeling of having all of these characters in my head and knowing that no one else knew a damned thing about them was amazing. It was just blissful. Pagford was mine, just mine, for ve years. I loved that. I wrote this novel as exactly what I wanted to write. And I loved it. I quote to her from a 2005 interview: The rst thing I write post-Harry could be absolutely dreadful and, you know, people will buy it. So youre left with this real insecurity. Rowling nods vigorously. But its true, isnt it? Absolutely, that was my worst nightmare. The moment I said Id nished a book, I knew what would happen. There would be a bidding war, and I would end up with someone whod got the fattest wallet, who had bought it because Id written Harry Potter. That would have been why.
But I was really lucky on this, because I had a meeting with David Shelley, whos now my editor, without him knowing there was a book. So we just had a conversation, and I could tell he was really on my wavelength. So then I sort of vaguely mentioned what I might have, without saying its virtually nished. There was no auction. It was just a great way to nd an editor. She swears she doesnt care how well the book sells. Im not being snotty about that, but I feel quite disconnected from that sort of expectation. There may be no commercial ambition left, but still perhaps an artistic point to prove? Some critics were always sniy about Potters literary merit In an arbitrarily chosen single page of the rst Harry Potter book, despaired Harold Bloom, I count seven clichs and I wonder if Rowling wrote The Casual Vacancy with those critics in mind. No, I truly didnt sit down and think, right, now its time to prove I can She breaks o and sighs. I dont think I physically could write a novel for that reason. To write such an ambitious book without ambition was neither a contradiction for Rowling, nor even a choice. I just needed to write this book. I like it a lot, Im proud of it, and that counts for me. She did consider publishing under a pseudonym. But in some ways I think its braver to do it like this. And, to an extent, you know what? The worst that can happen is that everyone says, Well, that was dreadful, she should have stuck to writing for kids and I can take that. So, yeah, Ill put it out there, and if everyone says, Well, thats shockingly bad back to wizards with you, then obviously I wont be throwing a party. But I will live. I will live. I dont doubt her, but her certainty has the faint zeal of a convert, so I ask how she can be sure. Because Im not the person I was a few years ago. Im not. Im happier The Casual Vacancy, by JK Rowling, is published on Thursday by Little, Brown at 20. To order a copy for 15 with free UK p&p, go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop or call 0330 333 6846.
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Beyond the velodrome

Thanks to Bradley and co, cycling has never been so popular. But dont let the end of summer put you off. These stylish accessories will help you stay in the saddle through the winter months
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1 Carrie bicycle basket A wonderfully overthe-top bike basket, perfect for carrying the shopping or maybe a small dog? 79, royaldesign.co.uk 2 Vizavee high-viz belt Cycling accessories can be terribly functional. Say No! to the boring uorescent-yellow visibility belt and opt for this jazzy one instead. 20, pushcycles. myshopify.com 3 Cyclestreets app Do you want to get there via the fastest or quietest route? A journey planner, designed for cyclists, by cyclists. Free, itunes.apple.com 4 Mopha tool roll This waxed canvas roll, with 10 pockets and a leather strap, is the perfect way to store your bike tools. 28.06, etsy.com 5 Britain By Bike A guide to travelling around Britain on two wheels, with a foreword by newlyannointed national treasure Clare Balding. What more could you want? 9.51, amazon.co.uk 6 Womens daily riding trousers Stylish enough to pass for regular cropped trousers, but the breathable, durable fabric makes them ideal for a daily commute. Around 115, shop.outlier.cc
7 Cassandra coat Leave your cagoule under the stairs: waterproof coats just got classy. 130, wateroaducksback. co.uk 8 Wiggo rucksack Just because youre a cyclist now, doesnt mean you dont care. Designer Ally Capellinos collection of beautiful, waterproof oiled canvas bags are a case in point, and come with laptop compartment and zip pockets. 160, allycapellino.co.uk 9 Bern helmet The only helmet to be seen in. The simple, clean design is a welcome move away from the Power Rangers look. 34.99, evanscycles.com 10 U-lock holder What do you do with that massive, heavy lock? The answer is this chic leather lock holster. 40.81, etsy.com 11 Leggits No more excuses, fairweather cyclists these waterproofs strap on over your shoes, plus the straps are reective dry and safe. 49.99, cyclechic.co.uk 12 Linus market bag This waxed canvas pannier has a 1940s charm that we cant resist. And it has a shoulder strap, too, so you can take it with you if you have to go out and about. 94.99, linusbags.co.uk
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13 Reective biker gloves and socks Its not always practical to lug extra cycling gear around with you. These feature reective patches to keep you safe on the roads at night. 15, suck.uk.com 14 Eddy base layer Made with merino wool, this is a British winter wardrobe essential if ever there was one. 50, nisterreuk.com 15 Linus sac pannier The most stylish pannier weve ever seen. Attaches to your bike with hooks, and comes with handles and an adjustable shoulder strap. 44.99, cyclechic.co.uk 16 Quick-x mudguards So youve bought your bike, and its sleek. So sleek that it has no mudguards. Solve the problem with these fold-up mudguards simply click on and o. 14.99, cyclesurgery.com
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17 Bobbin retro front light This battery-powered bike light adds a touch of old-world glamour to your ride. 24.99, cyclechic.co.uk 18 Rapha cycling jeans Specialist cycling jeans with an array of clever features, including reective stripes inside the leg, so you can roll up and be seen. Extra hardwearing, to endure some serious bum-chang, and tailored to accommodate the pedalling motion of your legs. They look pretty hot, too. 150, rapha.cc 19 Vulpine jacket British tailoring, breathable fabric plus a bright red splash-guard that unfolds from the back and acts as a mudguard when required. 195, vulpine.cc 20 Halobelt A great alternative to a na reective jacket. Doubles up as a psychtrance accessory at weekends. Around 53 plus shipping from US, halobelt.com
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How we clicked
Kate Moss turned up in fishnets, Amy Winehouse didnt want advice and the Queen was amused that welly boots were in the photograph. Bryan Adams tells Emma Brockes the stories behind his best shots
Previous pages: Lindsay Lohan Shes really playful, says Adams. The Queen was tickled by the wellies being in shot. Samantha Morton gives Alexander McQueen a t of the giggles. This page, clockwise from main: Kate Moss was wearing only shnets when she turned up at Adamss studio for the shoot; Tilda Swinton, Mick Jagger, Amy Winehouse and Michael J Fox. Overleaf, Mickey Rourke and friends tuck into shepherds pie
It would be dicult to measure, Bryan Adams says, but him having so often been on the receiving end of a photo shoot probably helps put his own subjects at ease. The 52-year-old rock star-turnedphotographer has compiled a collection of celebrity portraits taken over the last 12 years, with subjects ranging from Amy Winehouse and Tilda Swinton to Mick Jagger and the Queen. Adamss philosophy To make people look as good as possible, in the best possible light is simple and, to that end, he takes a relaxed approach: no gimmicky set-ups or props, nothing too high-concept and none of the mannered selfconsciousness of many celebrity portrait artists. The results are fresh and interesting, and Adams is modest in his description of them after rigorous pre-preparations, its just a question of turning up and seeing what happens, he says. In the case of the Queen, he made the mistake of underestimating how fast ve minutes goes. The encounter took place at Buckingham Palace, and Adams, unwisely, decided to shoot on a 10-8 box camera that came with a lot of time-consuming rigmarole: every shot required him to insert and extract plates from the camera. The photograph he eventually got of the Queen looking as relaxed as one is ever likely to see her was among the nal frames he took on a last-minute impulse. I happened to have my little pocket camera
ALL IMAGES BRYAN ADAMS, 2012
on me, too, and just as the session was ending and the corgis were running out of the door, I said, Maam, would you mind just having a seat here for a second? And thats the picture. Why is she smiling so broadly? She asked me if the boots were in the shot. And I said, Yes, maam. And then she smiled. Among the easiest subjects was Jagger, who in this portrait looks like a rock version of WH Auden and an advertisement for the wisdom of resisting Botox. He brings his own iPod, Adams says, and while shooting they listened to blues. Hes very funny and engaging, and a handsome man to shoot. Hes OK with who he is, I guess. Adams rst photographed Winehouse in 2007, on Mustique in the Caribbean, when she was having extraordinary problems. I did the best I could at the time to try to help, but there was no possibility. She wasnt listening to anyone. How was she during the shoot? Amy was very particular about things. She was very sure about how she wanted to look. As far as direction would go, Id say, lets go for a walk and see what happens. It was very much a casual thing. I wouldnt try to do too much set-up.
Kate Moss is never going to be a hard subject, but photographing a woman so often pictured requires a little ingenuity. At the time, Adams was using his own kitchen as a studio, And about 10 minutes before she arrived, her agent rang and said, Kate just called and said shes only going to wear shnet stockings. Is that OK? Adams said yes. He wondered if the agent was joking. He wasnt: Moss walked into his kitchen and unveiled the shnets. The photo took itself. Adams had read all the things about Lindsay Lohan that everyone else had, but over the course of several shoots, he never saw that side of her. I got the sense [that] shes really playful. She loves what she does, shes a great subject to work with. Both times shes been completely engaging. I never saw the side thats written about. The cigarette in the shot wasnt choreographed but came from Lohan messing around. When there is more than one subject in the room, Adams tries to make himself invisible. So it was with Mickey Rourke and his friends having lunch at the Dorchester. Shepherds pie, I think. It went down a treat. And with Samantha Morton and Alexander McQueen: Adams cant
remember what Morton said to set McQueen o, but it was denitely hilarious. Of Swinton, he says, Her beauty is so quintessentially English-Scottish. She typies that with such grace and poise. Shes a great spirit. And of Michael J Fox: One of the gentlest and kindest people, and so keen to do the best he can. If Adams could photograph anyone right now, it would be Sylvester Stallone. But the person he returns to in his mind is Winehouse. A while after the shoot, she called him. She asked me to do some of her last pictures, in fact, when she was being photographed for Fred Perry. She asked, would I do that campaign for her. I hadnt spoken to her for a bit and I said, Oh, Amy, its really nice of you to ask me to do this. And she said to me, Well, you was there when I was wrong. A singular phrase. Softly, Adams says it again: You was there when I was wrong. Exposed, by Bryan Adams, is published by Steidl, priced 80. To order a copy for 64, with free UK mainland p&p, go to guardian.co.uk/ bookshop or call 0330 333 6846.
fashion beauty food & drink mind relationships homes gardens property cars puzzles
weekender
Helena Maria Kidacka

HANDBAG DESIGNER, 23
I get out of bed every morning and aim to avoid looking anything like Cheryl Cole. She is my antistyle icon. Whenever I pick an outt, I think: would Cheryl wear this? Hair extensions, body con and super high heels dont appeal to me. Its all a bit TOWIE. I love Rihanna. Day after day after day, she pulls o sexy, whether shes rough and ready, or going to the Met Ball. She once wore a blazer dress that came halfway down her thighs, with thigh-high boots. It sounds as if she should have been scouting for business on a street corner, but in fact it looked amazing. Fashion blogger Karen Blanchard is another style icon. Shes a British girl in New York who posts pictures of herself in dierent outts on her blog, wheredidugetthat.com. She has perfected laid-back chic. Im a brave dresser. If youre condent, you can pull o almost anything. This dress is from Asos, and Ive dressed it down with my black leather biker jacket from Topshop. A black biker is a wardrobe staple everybody should own at least one. Its a big moment for a designer when your rst product gets sold on the high street. My rst one was a tassel clutch bag with a chain handle for Miss Selfridge. I saw a couple of people in the street with it and I had to stop them and say, I designed that! Interview by Becky Barnicoat.
EMILY STEIN FOR THE GUARDIAN
Are you a Weekender? Email a photo and a brief description of how you spend your weekends to weekender@ guardian.co.uk.
FASHION
All ages Fine and dandy

Lisskulla wears jumper, 38, by Warehouse, warehouse.co.uk. Skirt, 155, by Dagmar, from netaporter. com. Boots, 269, by Penelope Chilvers, penelopechilvers.com. Dap wears jumper, 32, by Next, next.co.uk. Cords, 205, by J Brand, from Matches, matchesfashion.com. Bag, 49.99, by Zara, zara.com. Boots, 120, by Topshop, topshop.com. Ema wears jumper, 159, by Dagmar, from Fenwick, fenwick.co.uk. Skirt, 89, by Cos, cosstores.com. Shoes, 49.99, by Zara, as before. Michele wears jumper, 195, by Margaret Howell, from Liberty, liberty.co.uk. Trousers, 69, by Cos, as before. Shoes, 68, by Topshop, as before. Betsie wears jumper, 300, by Acne, from Matches, as before. Trousers, 35, from asos.com. Shoes, 220, by Kurt Geiger, kurtgeiger.com.
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Photographer: David Newby for the Guardian. Stylist: Melanie Wilkinson. Makeup: Lisa Stokes using Dior 1. Hair: Jamie McCormick using Bumble and bumble. Models: Lisskulla at Bookings, Dap Tony at Elite, Ema at FM, Michele and Betsie at Close Models.
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FASHION
Wish list What we like this week

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1 Bag, 385, by See by Chlo, from my-wardrobe.com. 2 Boots, 150, by bananarepublic.co.uk. 3 Necklace, 15, asos.com. 4 Dress, 160, jaeger.co.uk. 5 Top, 150, sandro-paris. com.
FASHION
How to dress The leather forecast

JESS CARTNER-MORLEY
DAVID NEWBY FOR THE GUARDIAN. HAIR AND MAKEUP: DANI RICHARDSON USING CHANEL SS2012 AND HYDRA BEAUTY SERUM. BBC; ALAMY; REX
ometimes fashion makes a killing by taking something that used to be a bit fancy, a bit rareed, and marketing it to the masses. Im not just talking about clothes. It happened with chandeliers, which used to be just for hotel ballrooms and can now be stacked on to your Ikea trolley for 30 quid a pop. And it also happened with cupcakes, once a symbol of sepia-tinted domestic joy, the preserve of birthday parties and storybooks, and now sold at service stations. The fashion industry is currently on a mission to see if it can make the same thing happen to clothes made of leather. (I specify clothes because, obviously, leather shoes are not exactly a trend waiting to happen.) Leather clothing has never played more than a bit role in fashion leather is too expensive, not to mention too impractical, for that. You might have a leather jacket, or a leather skirt, but few women would have more than one or two pieces. Leather is getting cheaper, and new fabric technologies and techniques mean that lightweight
leather (the kind from which you could make a T-shirt) is now available at high-street prices. The leather with which the industry hopes to make a killing is leather-lite. This is leather for the skinny-cap era. The kind of leather that goes into making biker jackets weigh a tonne and gives a James Dean toughness to a jacket, which works. But the James Dean reference works less well when youre designing a sleeveless shift dress, or a leather T-shirt. For that, you need a slimmed-down leather, one that wont make you sweat, or look a half-ounce fatter than you really are, or be reminded that you are wearing an animal product. If youre thinking, Leather shift dress? How outlandish. I cant see myself buying one of those, then I refer you back to cupcakes and chandeliers. Stranger trends than this one have taken o. And no. Its kind of you to be concerned, but Im not hot at all, thanks very much. Dress, 499, by By Malene Birger, bymalenebirger.com. Courts, 165, by Russell & Bromley, russellandbromley.co.uk. Pendant and watch, Jesss own.
The Measure
GOING UP
Dallas JRs mad brows. John Rosss tache. Sue Ellens husky tone. Wednesday night is back in the game. Sue Perkins Cant get enough of her. Ready, steady, bake! No-choice menus Soho House founder Nick Jones takes it to the next level with his 50s-style diner Chicken Shop, serving only roast free-range birds, chips, coleslaw and corn on the cob. Delicious Agi & Sam Menswear duo extend their witty prints to a mini collection for Harvey Nichols. Total yay. Kilts and dungarees Wardrobe re-examination alert. See Topshop Unique for how + why. Mary Janes Nailing the backto-school vibe. Bonus points for a double strap.
GOING DOWN
Stripey T-shirts Fine for the hols, but not in the real world. Retire. Football Overpaid, oversexed men just dont cut the mustard any more. Were winners now. Polaroids on shoe boxes The new high-maintenance shoe thing is to stu scented bags into the toes. Pippas New York wardrobe Pips, youre a twentysomething in Manhattan, not a thirtysomething on a Surrey school run. Baing.
GET THE LOOK

1 Dress, 130, warehouse.co.uk. 2 Etched oral top, 85, oasis-stores.com. 3 Skirt, 59.99, shop. mango.com. 4 Top, 199, by Autograph, from marksandspencer.com.
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
Autumn style icons Carey Mulligans signature cinchedwaist dresses

arey Mulligan has class. While her contemporaries in the fame game battle it out for column inches with sex tapes and tweeted bikini photos, this 27-year-old does things her own way. When Mulligan wears a simple, knee-length dress with a high neckline and a detailed collar framing that eln face, she sets herself apart as fresher than the women around her on the red carpet, corseted and Spanxed and cantilevered into the narrowest frocks they can nd. Mulligans star is in the ascendant, which is good news, because we can expect plenty of opportunities to study her take on event dressing. She is not afraid to wear a trend before anyone else her mullethemmed Prada Oscar frock is a case in point but maintains as a touchstone in her wardrobe the simple silhouette of a cinched-waist dress, ending on or just above the knee. Mulligan doesnt do cleavage. This is one of the styling details which makes her a fashionistas favourite cleavage has seldom been seen on the catwalk in years, though youd never guess from its continued dominance of popular culture. She favours a high neckline, but is savvy enough to know this needs something to make it pop. Often, this is a contrast collar; at other times, it is a cutaway halterneck. When she wears a simple crewneck, there will be statement jewels at the throat and a feature belt. Cute doesnt have to be sugary. Finding a shape that suits you to function as the anchor in your wardrobe, as Mulligan has done with her nipped-waist dresses, makes dressing innitely easier. And a contrast collar is the thinking girls Wonderbra. Carey Mulligans red carpet wardrobe is an education for us all. Jess Cartner-Morley
AUTUMN STYLE ICONS IS FUNDED BY BODEN AND EDITORIALLY CONTROLLED BY THE GUARDIAN TO A BRIEF AGREED WITH BODEN. PHOTOGRAPHS: REX; GETTY (3)
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1 Pleated dress 160, karenmillen.com. 2 Necklaces 260, net-aporter.com. 3 Lace top 34, topshop.com. 4 Belt 79, jigsaw-online.com. 5 Jumper 79, boden.co.uk.
BEAUTY
Get the look Sali Hughes on anti-shine products
hine straddles a ne line. On one side, it adds a dewy, youthful glow to the face that many of us would love (and routinely try to replicate with cream blushers, illuminators and glosses). On the other, shiny skin rarely holds make-up well, is usually a sign of excess oil and an ever-present threat of breakout, and can look a little sweaty and undone come the afternoon. The problem with many antishine products is that they can make skin look chalky and patchy, because they over-absorb grease and replace it with powder and silicone. Others strip so much oil that they leave skin frantically producing more to overcompensate, so exacerbating the shine problem. What shiny skin actually needs is gentle, oil-free skincare to treat it, and light silicones and very ne particled make-up to disguise its eects. As someone whose skin is as dry as a husk, it seemed pretty pointless even to think about testing this weeks products on myself, so instead I sent them to friends who claim that shine is one of their biggest beauty gripes. The six listed below mattied, absorbed and treated excess shine better than any others, and all left skin feeling soft, not parched. Aromatherapy Associates Mattifying Skin Serum, 32, bathandunwind. com Very gentle and soothing serum, which leaves a velvety nish that helps grip make-up. Dove Spa Keepsake Mattifying Gel Cream, 17, dovespa.co.uk A clever moisturiser that includes silicones to absorb grease while it treats the skin.
What I see in the mirror

CHARLIE HIGSON
Im quite good at convincing myself that I look better than I really do, even though I know Im no longer a great physical speciman. Im lucky I was born with oily skin, so Ive got a good, youngish complexion. And because I havent been startled too much in my life or laughed too uproariously, I havent got too many lines. My face is fairly immobile and set in what appears to be quite a glum expression. My wife sometimes reminds me of this, but when I do try to smile, it frightens her. As a student, I thought I was pretty gorgeous. I was lead singer in a band, but I could only go halfway there with it. I could never do the whole messianic Bono/Mick Jagger thing. I know my faults. Ive got very baggy eyes and Im getting something of a double chin. Ive also got a lot fatter over the years and I keep telling my kids, who are incredibly skinny, that they cant be complacent, but they just laugh at me. Ive always been rubbish at taking exercise, but I have taken up running recently in a last-ditch eort to stay alive. Im still waiting to enjoy it. I started to develop a beer gut in my 20s and I wish I was more sensible, but I still like beer. I measure my run in how many extra beers I can have. Thats why I do it. Getting older doesnt bother me. I have a slight secret longing to be a grubby old man with a white beard, sitting in a chair with a blanket. I say embrace it and go the whole hog. The Sacrice, the fourth book in Charlie Higsons The Enemy series, is published by Pun.
RUI FARIA FOR THE GUARDIAN; EYEVINE
Kleenex Shine Absorbing Sheets, 2.99, superdrug.com Dont buy those horrible powder sheets. Instead, get these: hygienic, supereective and can be used over make-up.
Vichy Normaderm, from 10.50, boots.com This range is fab at absorbing sweat and oil, while keeping skin fresh and moist. Total Mat moisturiser was a big hit.
Laura Mercier Secret Finish Mattifying, 23.50, houseoraser. co.uk When make-up comes undone, repair it with a dab of this. Matties immediately.
Institut Esthederm Pure System Shine Control Fluid, 23.95, beautybay.com A fantastic moisturiser that leaves skin hydrated and glowing, and with no shine.
FOOD
Opposites attract
Theres something magical about food thats hot and cold at the same time, says Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
have a soft spot for some of the puds that graced my mothers 1970s dinner party tables pavlova always hit the spot, and Ill never tire of her proteroles. Baked Alaska usually lacks subtlety over-sweet and ridiculously showy, its more about the spectacle of serving ice-cream out of the oven than about avour or nesse but she cleverly served it with raspberries, which added vital fruity tartness and made it extra-special. It also added a third temperature essentially ambient to the hot meringue and frozen ice-cream. Genius. There is something irresistible and a bit daring about the mingling of contrasting temperatures in the mouth. It excites the palate and gently, deliciously, confuses the bit of the brain that processes taste, temperature and texture. Virtuoso chefs have had fun playing with the hot-cold idea. Heston Blumenthal the mischievous scamp perfected the art of serving tea that is hot on one side of the cup and cold on the other. And Ferran Adri used to re up diners with a hot-cold gin zz cocktail that hid a frozen, lemony slush beneath a warm gin foam. And at Roganic in London, Simon Rogan is dishing up hot, charred slices of dragons egg cucumber (a sweet, white, ovoid variety) with a frozen goats cheese snow. But such sensory sport is not the sole preserve of the professional chef. Contrasting temperatures can be found time and time again in the annals of good, simple, comforting
home cooking. You can experience a chaud-froid frisson with something as simple as a dish of piping hot apple crumble and a jug of fridge-cold cream; or with a hot burger o the barbie squashed into a bun with a spoonful of cool tomato salsa. A hot chocolate brownie served with ice-cold plum sorbet and fridge-cold cream is an all-time favourite pud for me. And then theres the time-honoured pairing of hot (in two senses) curries and chillies with cold, mouth-cooling raitas, dips and creamy sauces. So this weekend, lets whizz back and forth between the cooker and the freezer or fridge, and enjoy the sensuous pleasures of blowing hot and cold at the same time.
ICE-CREAM WITH FROZEN RASPBERRIES AND HOT CHOCOLATE FUDGE SAUCE

This very easy pudding is pure, sugary, hot-and-cold indulgence, the sort of thing to send a shiver down your spine in the most appealing way. Serves four.
150g chocolate fudge, roughly crumbled or chopped 25ml milk 100-125g frozen raspberries Vanilla ice-cream 50g slivered, toasted almonds or other nuts of your choice (optional)
Put the crumbled or chopped fudge into a small pan and add the milk. Heat gently, stirring constantly and
FOOD PHOTOGRAPHY: COLIN CAMPBELL FOR THE GUARDIAN
crushing the fudge pieces with a spoon as you do so, until the fudge has melted into the milk, making a smooth, pourable sauce. Take the raspberries out of the freezer about 10 minutes before serving, so they soften a little. Its worth doing the same with the ice-cream, to make it easier to scoop. Put two scoops of ice-cream into each of four glasses or sundae dishes, scatter over the raspberries and top with hot fudge sauce. Finish o with a generous scattering of nuts, if you like.
CRAB CAKES WITH CHILLED FENNEL AND APPLE SALAD

The combination of crisp, pan-hot crab cakes and a chilled, delicately sweet, aniseed-scented salad is very pleasing. Serves four as a starter.
250g mixed white and brown crabmeat Grated zest of 1 lemon 1 tbsp nely chopped parsley and/or chives 1-2 tbsp crme frache or soured cream (optional) 3 tbsp plain our 1 medium egg, lightly beaten 50g slightly stale, ne white breadcrumbs 4 tbsp sunower oil Lemon wedges, to serve Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper For the salad 1 bulb fennel 2 tbsp olive oil 1 tbsp baby capers, rinsed Lemon juice 1 crisp dessert apple, such as a cox
and plenty of salt and pepper, and stir gently together. (The moist brown crab meat should be enough to bind it all together, but if not, add a little crme frache, if need be.) Divide the mixture into four and shape each into a fat cake, about 2cm thick. Chill for about an hour. To make the salad, trim the fennel, then slice as nely as you can. Combine it in a bowl with the oil, capers, a squeeze of lemon and salt and pepper (remember that the capers are already salty). Toss, then refrigerate. Put the apple in the fridge, too, to chill down. When youre ready to cook, quarter, core and thinly slice the apple, toss it into the salad and return to the fridge. Put the our on a plate and season with salt and pepper. Pour the egg into a shallow dish and scatter the breadcrumbs on another plate. Take a crab cake and dip it into the our to coat on all sides. Shake o any excess, dip it into the beaten egg and nally into the breadcrumbs. Repeat with the other three crab cakes. Heat the oil in a large frying pan. Add the crab cakes and fry over a medium heat for six to seven minutes, turning them carefully now and again, until crisp and golden brown. Serve at once with the chilled salad and a wedge of lemon.
AUTUMN VEG CHILLI WITH CHILLED GUACAMOLE

This veggie, beany chilli is best made ahead of time, chilled and reheated a day or two later. Serves four.
3 tbsp sunower or rapeseed oil 2 onions, peeled and chopped 1 red, yellow or orange pepper, stalk, pith and seeds removed, chopped 1 bulb fennel, trimmed and chopped
Put the crabmeat in a bowl with the lemon zest, parsley and/or chives,
FOOD & DRINK
Wine Perry is in a different class from pear cider, says Fiona Beckett
Ever since I rst came across perry in the early 1990s, Ive been fascinated by it, not least by the idea that perry trees can grow to the size of an oak and still be productive when they are 200 years old you plant pears for heirs, the saying goes. And I remember the drink, too; quite dierent from cider, pure, fragrant, much like a white wine. Fast-forward 20 years, and were in the middle of a pear cider boom that has nothing to do with perry its made from dessert pears or concentrate with added articial avours. Perry, by contrast, has its own PGIs (the three counties of Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and Worcestershire) and hundreds of specic perry pears with evocative names such as Merrylegs, Painted Lady and Mumblehead (you can tell how that last one came about). The start of the perry pear harvest is a good time to reacquaint yourself with the real thing. I headed to the Bristol Cider Shop, which always has a changing selection on tap, on this occasion the fragrant McCrindles Blakeney Red (6.2% abv), which you can buy for 2 a pint. That works out at just 2.60 for a 750ml bottle cheaper than even the cheapest cut-price wine. Perry tends to be sweeter than cider, but I think its delicate avours show best when its dry. Established names to look out for are Olivers, Gwatkin and Hecks, though I still have a soft spot for the rst one I tasted, the heady, organic Dunkertons Perry (2.45 for 500ml, Abel & Cole; 2.60, Vintage Roots; 7.5% abv), which you could drink in place of a pinot gris with spicy Asian food. Of the sweeter styles, try Lyne Down Perry (5 for 750ml, direct from lynedowncider.co.uk; or 5.20, Bristol Cider Shop), which smells of pears and honey and which you could drink with a simple dessert such as pannacotta and raspberries. Appropriate name, too. Sparkling perries are a popular alternative to champagne at West Country weddings (still perry or cider for the meal, sparkling for the toast). James McCrindle again makes a delicious one called Loiterpin (8.5% abv) for 14.95 from the Bristol Cider Shop (10% o if you buy a case), or try Greggs Pits richer, softer Herefordshire Perry (5.5%), made from Barnet, Brandy and Winnals Longdon pears (greggs-pit.co.uk for stockists). And if you havent got access to a good cider shop? Waitrose does the best own-label one Ive tasted, Vintage English Perry 2011 (8% abv): a 500ml bottle costs just 1.95, though if you get your skates on, its on special oer at 1.46 until Tuesday. matchingfoodandwine.com
2 garlic cloves, peeled and nely chopped or grated 2-3 medium-hot red chillies (or to taste), deseeded and nely chopped 2 tsp ground cumin tsp ground allspice 2 tbsp tomato pure 400g tinned plum tomatoes, crushed (or 500g fresh tomatoes, skinned, deseeded and roughly chopped) 1 smallish aubergine (about 300g), cut into 1cm dice 400g tinned beans (cannellini or pinto, say), drained and rinsed 400ml vegetable stock Chilled soured cream Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper For the guacamole 2 tbsp nely chopped coriander Juice of 1 lemon, or of a lemon and 1 lime 2 large, ripe avocados, chilled 1 tbsp rapeseed or olive oil -1 tbsp full-fat plain yoghurt (optional)
Heat two tablespoons of oil in a large saucepan over a medium-low heat. Add the onion, sweat for about ve minutes, then add the pepper and fennel, and sweat for ve minutes more. Add the garlic, chillies, cumin, allspice and a pinch or two of salt, stir and cook for a couple of minutes. Stir in the tomato pure
and tomatoes, and simmer gently for 20-25 minutes while you prepare the aubergine. Heat the remaining tablespoon of oil in a frying pan over medium heat, add the aubergine and fry, stirring often, for ve minutes, until softened and taking on some colour. Stir this into the pan of bubbling chilli, and add the beans and stock. Bring to a simmer and cook gently, uncovered, for an hour, until the mixture is thick and rich, and all the veg is nicely tender. Add salt and pepper to taste. Make the guacamole just before serving: put the coriander and lemon and/or lime juice in a bowl. Halve, deseed and peel the avocados, cut them into chunks and drop into the bowl. Add the oil and plenty of salt and pepper, then mash the lot together: keep it a bit rough and lumpy, if you like, or mash smooth. (You can make it even smoother and saucier by whisking in a little yoghurt.) Check the seasoning. Serve the chilli piping hot with bowls of the cold guacamole and soured cream alongside. Serve with rice, warm tortillas or atbreads guardian.co.uk/ hughfearnleywhittingstall Hughs new book, Three Good Things, is published by Bloomsbury at 25. To order a copy for 16 (including free UK mainland p&p), go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop or call 0330 333 6846.
Berger & Wyse

BERGERANDWYSE.COM
KATHERINE ROSE (2)
FOOD
Yotam Ottolenghi A lovely spiced pastry for brunch or pudding, plus a stew thats well worth the effort
Shaved skin of 1 lemon tsp caster sugar 2 tbsp lemon juice 1 green chilli, nely chopped 20g parsley, nely chopped 200g Greek yoghurt Salt
FRIED BRIK PARCELS WITH APPLE AND CLOVE

For brunch or a serious dessert. Serves six.
90g mascarpone 90g Greek yoghurt 90g double cream 2 tsp icing sugar 3 bramley apples (500g) 4 granny smith apples (500g) 2 tbsp lemon juice vanilla pod, scraped 5 whole cloves 100g dried sour cherries 70g muscovado sugar 6 30cm-diameter round brik sheets (if you cant nd any, use lo) Sunower oil, for frying
Put the mascarpone, yoghurt, cream and icing sugar in a bowl, whisk
smooth and refrigerate until needed. Peel the apples, cut into 1.5cm dice and toss in a pan with the lemon juice and three tablespoons of water. Add the vanilla pod and seeds, cloves, cherries and sugar, then saut on medium heat, stirring, for 12 minutes, until soft. Set aside. Add oil to a medium pan to come 5cm up the sides and put on medium heat. Remove the cloves and vanilla pod from the apple pan. Take a brik sheet, fold it in half, and put two tablespoons of apple in the centre, with 3cm clear all round. Fold over the long side and rounded side, then fold up the short sides so they overlap in the middle, encasing the apple in a 12cm x 5cm rectangle. Repeat with the remaining brik and lling. Carefully slide one parcel, folded side down, into the hot oil and fry for two minutes until golden-brown, turning once. Transfer to kitchen
paper to drain, and repeat with the rest. Serve hot with the cream.
VERMICELLI, BEEF AND CHICKPEA CASSEROLE

A super-comforting meal in a pot. Serves four.
4 tbsp olive oil 400g piece stewing beef Beef bones (or 1 cube beef stock) 15 cloves garlic, peeled 200g vermicelli pasta 1 medium onion, peeled and diced 3 carrots, peeled, cut into 1cm dice 200g celery, cut into 1cm dice 1 tsp ground cumin tsp ground allspice 10 cardamom pods, lightly crushed 1 tbsp tomato paste 240g cooked chickpeas
Put a large saut pan on high heat, add a tablespoon of oil and brown the beef and bones (if using). Add two litres of water, bring to a boil, skim and simmer gently for two hours until the meat is very tender. After an hour and a half, add the garlic; and ensure the meat is always immersed, so add water as needed. Remove the meat and garlic and measure the liquid: you need 650ml, so discard or add water as necessary; add the stock cube, if using. Cut the meat into bite-size chunks and put back in the pan with the garlic. Heat the oven to 220C/gas mark 7. Break the pasta into 2-3cm pieces, lay on an oven tray, and bake until toasted (three to ve minutes). Heat the remaining oil in a large pan, add the diced veg and saut on medium heat for 10 minutes, stirring. Add the spices, tomato paste, chickpeas, lemon skin, sugar and a teaspoon of salt, cook for ve minutes, then tip into the beef pan. Add the noodles and lemon juice, stir and bring to a boil. Turn the heat very low, cover with a tight lid, and simmer gently for eight minutes, until the noodles absorb the liquid. Leave to rest for a few minutes, stir through the chilli and parsley and serve with yoghurt on the side. Yotam Ottolenghi is chef/patron of Ottolenghi and Nopi in London. His new book, Jerusalem, co-written with Sami Tamimi, is published by Ebury Press at 27. To order a copy for 16 (inc free UK mainland p&p), go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop, or call 0330 333 6846.
COLIN CAMPBELL FOR THE GUARDIAN. FOOD STYLING: CLAIRE PTAK
FOOD
Dan Lepard Once youve tried fresh curd cheese in sweet baking, youll find it very hard to go back
gentle bake temperature in order to set evenly without cracking; even with care, it can sometimes develop a seismic fault line through the middle, but you can mask that somewhat when you cut it into wedges for serving. If you use freerange eggs, especially more expensive ones such as those from Clarence Court that have vividly golden yolks, the tart will have a more richly lemon-coloured curd lling.
COLIN CAMPBELL FOR THE GUARDIAN. FOOD STYLING: CLAIRE PTAK
150g caster sugar Finely grated zest of 3 lemons 150g soft goats or sheeps cheese 3 medium eggs, plus two extra yolks 50g crme frache 150ml fresh lemon juice One 18cm shortcrust pastry base, blind baked until golden and crisp, and kept in the metal tart case
Fresh curd cheese the sort that has a delicate, ricotta-like consistency rather than fresh from the supermarket but matured and rm can be used in sweet baking to give a softer texture to the crumb. Use it in classic cheesecakes and English curd tarts, but you can also add it to chocolate cakes and citrus tarts for a richer avour. Something like the Perroche goats cheese from Neals Yard Dairy is ideal; or warm some goats or sheeps milk, stir in rennet according to the instructions, and strain overnight in muslin: easy and homemade. The left-over whey is excellent in breadmaking, giving a delicate acidity to crust and crumb.
brownie and a pudding, with the cheese lending a gentle, sharp avour. Very good served warm with coee ice-cream and a dousing of armagnac. I used fresh unpasteurised sheeps curd, which has a delicate, slightly nutty avour and a subtle acidity.
275g dark chocolate (70%, say) 125g unsalted butter 450g fresh goats or sheeps cheese (or equal parts ricotta and cream cheese, mixed) 300g sugar (white or brown) 3 medium eggs 2 tsp vanilla extract 100g ground almonds 125g plain our
and sugar until smooth, then beat in the eggs, vanilla and almonds. Stir in the chocolate/butter mixture, followed by the our and baking powder. Spoon into mun cases set in a pocketed tray, or into a deep, round, buttered 20-25cm tart tin (use ramekins for any leftovers), lling just short of the top because they sink slightly once cool. Sprinkle with toasted almonds or pine nuts and bake at 190C (170C fanassisted)/375F/gas mark 5 for about 25 minutes for muns; or until the middle has gently risen for the tart, which will take a little longer.
CHOCOLATE CURD CAKES

Bake small cakes in mun cases, or as one large tart to serve in wedges. The texture is midway between a
1 tsp baking powder Toasted almonds or pine nuts
LEMON AND CURD CHEESE TART

Alastair Little taught me this method of adding soft cheese to a classic tart citron, and I was hooked from the moment I tasted it. It requires a very
Melt the chocolate and the butter together. In a bowl, beat the cheese
Beat the sugar, zest and cheese until utterly smooth, then whisk in the eggs and crme frache. Stir in the lemon juice, then leave the mixture to sit for 30 minutes so that a froth rises to the top. Carefully skim o and discard this froth (leaving it on will only mar the upper surface of the tart; the avour will still be good). Check the tart case, still in its tin, for any cracks or holes and patch them up with a little raw shortcrust dough so the crust is leakproof (some chefs like to give the inside a brush with egg white and then give it a quick blast in a hot oven to set it and create a waterproof liner eect). Heat the oven to 170C (150C fanassisted)/335F/gas mark 3. Put the tart, still in its tin, on a baking tray, transfer to the oven and pour in the lling through a sieve to remove the zest. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until barely set, then remove and leave until cold before serving. danlepard.com/guardian
FOOD & DRINK
Marina OLoughlin This, surely, is going to be the easiest of targets. Except it isnt. Its lovely
astings is a curious town. Get o the train, and youre immediately plunged into the melancholy reality that is the English seaside town, glory days rmly in the past. But as soon as you pass the scued splendour of Pelham Terrace, the atmosphere changes dramatically. This is the Old Town, all winding twittens and clapboard cottages populated by chaps who look like Penfold in Danger Mouse or wafty, nouveau Land Girls; arty urbanites in search of the Good Life, for whom Coast magazine is as lubricious as porn. It has a High Street, complete with butcher, baker (organic, natch) and now, with AG Hendy & Co Home Store, a purveyor of candlesticks. This is a labour of almost maniacal love by Alastair Hendy, photographer, stylist and food writer. It took him more than three years to restore the building, and every surface now groans with things you thought they didnt make any more: Bristolware, bottle brushes, ostrich feather dusters. Hastings being Hastings, its also full of daytripper rubberneckers picking up enamel colanders and saying, I got one of those at TK Maxx. Oh, wait. That was me. The coyly named Kitchen is the only new part of the building, but youd never know from its artfully dusty beams. Hendy is in the open kitchen with twin blond Adonises. Even the sta appear to be curated.
FOOD 8/10 ATMOSPHERE 8/10 VALUE FOR MONEY 5/10
AG HENDY & CO HOME STORE KITCHEN

36 High Street, Hastings, 01424 447171. Sat & Sun only, noon-4.45pm (and by appointment for groups). Meal for two with drinks and service, around 100. Were seated by a tap that drips into a chipped, scalloped sink; the distressed table is set with tarnished, bone-handled cutlery; shifting seat, I get a giant splinter in my jeans. This whole Marie Antoinette-ish palaver is, surely, going to be the easiest of targets. Except it isnt. Its lovely. Apart from anything else, theres the beauty: a glass jar of perfectly ripe greengages sits beside sundae glasses of strawberries and meringue;
an enamel tub brims with rosy lobsters. In the semi-gloom and dark-painted walls, its as aecting as a Vermeer still life. There are only a handful of tables, a few of them in the kitchen itself. The food, which comes without any kind of starter/main course rhythm, is everything you want lunch by the sea to be. Theres dressed crab, sweet and pungent, with the kind of wobbly, homemade mayonnaise you can cut with a knife. Simple things make you coo with pleasure thanks to the freshness of the ingredients: oily, chargrilled sourdough piled high with creamy goats curd and emerald broad beans; a whole wild seabass with ticklish green sauce of capers, gherkins and fresh herbs. A slab of delicate courgette tart is
subtle and soothingly bland; Hendys recipe suggests raw, mandolined courgettes: Let some ripple and loop back on themselves, so it looks like a rectangle of green-edged tumbled ribbon. Which kind of says it all. Everything is plonked insouciantly on enamelware, with nothing more than a slice of lemon or slick of sauce. Crab bisque oers the tricksiest presentation, but even thats just metal saucepan on metal tray with ladle for self-serving. Its gorgeous, too: rich, deep crab avour, lick of cream and brandy. The tiniest hint of fennel makes me wish hed dumped in a slug of pastis, but its damn nigh perfect. Browsing previous menus, a pattern emerges. Some fresh veg, the kind youd pluck from the allotment. Assemblies with green herbs and creamy curds. Items baked with butter and a punch of vivid aromatics. Fresh sh, simply cooked, simply served. Some kind of seafoody stew. Retro numbers such as sprats and bloaters and melts [soft roe] on toast. Its basic, and brilliant. Lulled into a little sepia fug, were woken up sharply by the prices: lunch for two ends up way over the ton. OK, that includes wine and excellent bloody mary, but the seabass costs 28, which is up there with any Mayfair wankpit. Still, I leave a total convert: Hendy is some kind of obsessive maverick who has created a seductive world of his own. And, for a brief moment out of time, Im glad he let me in.
A C H I L L E S S P A M L D A GU E U C P O B NO B S A V H O I R E V A L N W QU I T Y A N G O G R A ND C U R E S E UD S O N E S A T A N Z A S R O N A L D S E A R L E N I C A N U A T A L O D E Y O J T U T E N N Y ON E I OMON E G ON E S
SOLUTIONS
Quiz 1 Downing Street (No 10 cat). 2 The Hustons: Walter, his son John and Johns daughter Anjelica. 3 Syphilis. 4 Political action committee. 5 A million to one (from HG Wellss The War Of The Worlds). 6 European bison. 7 Armenia and Azerbaijan. 8 Goldnger. 9 The group the Saturdays. 10 Plays in Harvey Fiersteins Torch Song Trilogy. 11 Jumps in gure skating. 12 Played Winston Churchill on screen. 13 Cities on the river Congo. 14 Sisters of Princess Diana. 15 Shows featuring Young British Artists. Scrabble See board right. Answer: PARADIGM. Crossword See board far right.
Z P E A A B E R T H R R E X O T I C A E D A D P I T D G O M A D Y
KATHERINE ROSE FOR THE GUARDIAN
SPACE
MIND & RELATIONSHIPS
This column will change your life Stop moaning about moaners, says Oliver Burkeman
orry to moan, but have you seen the bad press complainers have been getting lately? Sometimes hey, dont back away, I want you to listen! it seems as if you cant open a lifestyle magazine, or self-help book, without being lectured on the importance of avoiding whiners. According to one typical piece, from the American business magazine Inc, spending 30 minutes with a complainer literally destroys your brain, peel[ing] away neurons in the brains hippocampus. Yes, you read that correctly. Just half an hour listening to a colleague complaining about the broken oce printer, say, or the aggravating popularity of simplistic brain-based explanations for complex mental phenomena will turn you into a zombie. Complaining, says Britishborn entrepreneur Trevor Blake, whose new book, Three Simple Steps, is the source of that neuronpeeling claim, is a cultural disease in the western world. You owe it to yourself to use protection. This latest angle on the curse of moaning involves some rather liberal extrapolations from the work of the neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky, about neural degeneration in the presence of high stressors. But I dont mean to single Blake out. Self-helps hostility to whiners also known as toxic people, energy vampires and life leeches is long-standing, reaching from its most new agey corners (one such title is Psychic Vampires: Protection From Energy Predators & Parasites) to its most science-heavy. And the advice is usually the same: get away from them, or screen them out. Blake cites a trick that golfer Seve Ballesteros apparently used when faced with a hostile crowd: He imagined a bell jar no one could see, descending from the sky to protect him.
What Im really thinking

THE JUNIOR DOCTOR
I feel as if Im in the middle of a brutal initiation rite but, of course, I cant let my patients see that. I try to be calm, patient, attentive. I hold a patients hand, spend time with the families, take time to explain whats going on, and try to imagine what my patient is going through. But I cant switch o. I dream about what could happen every night. Believe it or not, medical school largely keeps you away from properly sick patients. So Im thinking, am I really up to this? Hello, is there anyone around who can help me? Were just a bleep away, you wont be alone in a situation for long they reassure us in our induction week. A few days in, and thats exactly what happens. With zero experience, Im suddenly dealing with acutely ill people, out of hours and on my own. Id like to think I could rely on other doctors, but I cant I often nd them arrogant and abrupt. Instead the nurses are my allies. I wonder if the patients realise Im new to the job. I think theyd be shocked if they knew; I had to spend almost an hour on my own in a frightening situation with a very ill young patient. I thought she was going to die on me. I begged two other doctors to help but they were busy with other sick patients. It was OK in the end and the patient survived, but its not an experience Im ever going to forget. And I know it will happen again, too soon. Tell us what youre really thinking at mind@guardian.co.uk
GKIMAGES.COM; LO COLE, BOTH FOR THE GUARDIAN
Lets be clear: there are people its best to block out. But the label of complainer is useless for identifying them, as it encompasses so much. If the complainer is your depressed close friend, you might choose to engage out of compassion, peeling neurons be damned. If its a spouse who relentlessly belittles you, screening out wont work: you might have to leave. If your whining employee is whining about harassment, youd better listen, not imagine a bell jar. Even genuinely trivial complaining, as the psychologist Robin Kowalski points out in her book Complaining, Teasing And Other Annoying Behaviours, can serve as a conversational icebreaker. Besides, in condemning people as complainers, were dicing with the fundamental attribution error: when I do something obnoxious, its an understandable response to my situation, but when someone else
does, its because of an obnoxious personality. But if your oce is full of moaners, maybe the problems not the moaners but the oce: the lights, the chairs, the lack of privacy. The anti-whiner crowd, I think, are really targeting the subset known as help-rejecting complainers: people who seek advice, then spurn it, because their real motive is to prove theyre unhelpable. Theyre playing the game Eric Berne, in his 1960s bestseller, Games People Play, called yes, but: oer a solution, and theyll nd a reason to reject it. The right response is to refuse to play the game. Break the cycle by agreeing sympathetically. Or (and Blake does suggest this) ask: What do you plan to do about it? As for the other kind of complainer the ordinary kind youll probably just have to learn tolerance. Because the technical term for them is everybody. oliver.burkeman@guardian.co.uk
SPACE
RELATIONSHIPS
Blind date Tien Nguyen, 24, music merchandiser, meets Michael Litman, 26, digital marketer
Tien on Michael Before the date, what were you hoping for? Good conversation, yummy food and someone with selfdeprecating humour. First impressions? Friendly smile. What did you talk about? My terrible dancing, how bad he is at poker, food, movies, travelling, jobs the usual gu. Any awkward moments? He took my photo and uploaded it on Instagram. Good table manners? Yes. He really knows how to rock a bib. Best thing about him? Cool specs. Would you introduce him to your friends? I suspect I nearly met his halfway through the meal, he showed me a photo of us that a friend had sent him. Having a friend spy was strange. Showing me the picture was even stranger. Could he meet the parents? Not sure hed be able to handle my tiger mum. Did you go on somewhere? Just for a quick drink. And... did you kiss? No. If you could change one thing about the evening, what would it be? That we had more in common. Marks out of 10? As bingo callers say, man alive 5. Would you meet again? Probably not. Michael on Tien Before the date, what were you hoping for? Just to get through the date. First impressions? Great smile, good style. What did you talk about? The usual family, food, work, travel, what we did at uni. We seemed to share an unusually similar interest in a lot of things. Any awkward moments? It all felt pretty natural. Good table manners? Very good. We both there sat there with bibs on eating a seafood platter. It was pretty funny. Best thing about her? The more unusual things we had in common stood out. Would you introduce her to your friends? Denitely. Shed t right in. Could she meet the parents? No girl has met them yet. Did you go on somewhere? Yes. And... did you kiss? On the cheek. If you could change one thing about the evening, what would it be? She was recovering from a sleepdeprived weekend at a festival a few days earlier so wasnt feeling 100%. Marks out of 10? 8 Would you meet again? We talked about it, and while Id like to, I think the moments passed. Tien and Michael ate at Floripa, London EC2, oripalondon.com. Fancy a blind date? Email blind.date@guardian.co.uk
MARTIN ARGLES; SARAH LEE, BOTH FOR THE GUARDIAN
SPACE
Faking it
Fancy an instant New Yorkstyle exposed brick wall, elegant Georgian panelling, or a library of antique books? Then cheat. Styling by Sally Cullen. Pictures by Stephen Lenthall
STYLISTS ASSISTANT: JESSICA EDWARDS
Bathroom Scrapwood wallpaper (ref PHE-8) by Piet Hein Eek, 199/roll, from bodieandfou.com. Oak passionata ooring, 29.49/sq m, from quickstep.com. Cooke & Lewis Victoria bath, 299, from B&Q (diy.com). Jar, 85, and apothecary jar, 29.95 for three, both from paleandinteresting.com. Kitchen Brick wallpaper (ref 21213), from 5.95/1m roll, from decowall.co.uk. B2 work bench, from 5,500, from bulthaup.com. Kilve dish, 148, from rowenandwren. co.uk. Cooks Collection pans, from 35, and chopping board, from 4, both from sainsburys. co.uk.
SPACE
Dining room Patterned Illusion 1 wallpaper, 185/roll, from deborahbowness. com. Flooring, as before. Copenhagen table, 669; pair of Copenhagen chairs, 299; Home Collection 12-piece ribbed dinner set, 50; and Tu candelabra, 16; all from sainsburys.co.uk. Jansen & Co cake stand, 33.49, from scp.co.uk.
Library Library wallpaper (ref L04A-MULTI), 119.90/10m roll, from andrewmartin.co.uk. Chestereld leather armchair, 468, from tesco.com. Step wall unit, 39, from very. co.uk. Autograph task lamp, 199, from marksandspencer.com. Books, stylists own. Bedroom Chestereld button back wallpaper in grey, 70 for a 50 x 250cm roll, from mineheart. com. Belgravia chaise, from 785, from featherandblack.com. Arissa turned oak candlestick in ebony, 88, and Winkie candle holder, 26, both from rowenandwren.co.uk.
GARDENS
How does your garden grow?

An RHS drive to bring gardening into schools is reaping a rich harvest, says Dawn Isaac
ead gardener Bo Stills has a lot on his mind. Slugs have been a problem this year, there are prize vegetables to be chosen for show and hes wondering if theres space for the soft fruits he wants to plant. Nothing unusual there, until you realise that Bo is eight and the garden he tends is on a school roof in Tower Hamlets. Bo and his fellow gardeners attend Chisenhale primary school, one of nearly 16,000 that have registered for the RHS Campaign for School Gardening which is celebrating its fth anniversary this month. The benets of school gardening range from improved behaviour to healthier eating habits, but the RHS had a more specic aim. The charity was worried about the loss of gardening skills, says Claire Custance, RHS strategic development manager, and we wanted to ensure these were transferred to the younger generation. Whats more, most young people dont see gardening as a career to be proud of. The campaign oers gardening resources and teaching plans, which are free to access and show schools how a garden can be used as a teaching tool across all subjects. There is also an emphasis on skills, from experienced regional advisers running sta training sessions, to schools getting parents up
DOUGLAS BAKER; CASSIE LIVERSIDGE; ALLISON ROWLANDS; LOGAN WANG
to speed with Get Your Grown-ups Growing events. Do you know what an African keyhole garden is? If not, ask pupils at Heronsbridge school in Bridgend. Children at this special needs school have built one and give visitors tours of their orchard, kitchen garden and wilderness area as part of the National Garden Scheme (ngs.org.uk). Students from the school won a silver gilt medal at the The school gardens at Overthorpe in Dewsbury (above) and Chisenhale in Tower Hamlets (above, right); the Heronsbridge bug hotel, Bridgend (left)
Chelsea Flower Show last year for a garden designed with horticultural adviser Anthea Guthrie. In Dewsbury, North Yorkshire, Year 6 children at Overthorpe school have been working with Doug Baker, their outdoor learning mentor, to bring history lessons alive. Why simply read about life during the second world war when you can build your own Anderson shelter and Dig For Victory with heritage vegetables youve grown yourself? And surely stories of Viking life are better told in your own Viking pit house whose roof youve turfed. But while Heronsbridge and Overthorpe are fortunate in having
plenty of land, the campaign is aimed at all schools even those with little outside space. Bos school grounds are, in the words of his headteacher Helen James, so tiny and so concrete that it might seem madness to begin a garden here. But, using containers, Chisenhale grows a huge range of crops, from carrots and spinach to wheat which they have made into bread. Pumpkins have been tricky, encroaching on to the playground, but despite resembling orange footballs, not one was damaged, which James puts down to the childrens pride in their environment. As Lili, aged
Plant of the week

WALLFLOWER WINTER JOY
What is it? Theres nothing like the warm, spicy scent of a wallower wafting around a spring garden. The mauve blooms of Erysimum cheiri Winter Joy set against the foil of grey-green foliage are a cut above the rest. Expect it to ower from March to June if its happy. Plant it with? You cant go wrong teaming wallowers with tulips: the deep purple Caravelle (guardiangardencentre.co.uk/plant10080911/15-tulip-palestrina/) or the purple-pink Abigail (guardiangardencentre.co.uk/plant10062441/15-tulip-abigail/). Or plant in a pot or window box with violas and trailing ivy. The height and spread is about 60cm x 50cm, but plant close together and theyll support each other as they grow. And where? Full sun and poor, fastdraining soil (ideally alkaline). As the name suggests, they love being planted in and on walls. Any drawbacks? Theres a bit of work to be done before the owers arrive youll need to pot these plug plants on, grow them somewhere frost-free, then acclimatise them to the outdoors before planting out. What else does it do? Winter Joy doesnt need deadheading phew. Plus you can cut the blooms to bring inside and enjoy the scent. Buy it Order four 50mm plug plants for 12.99, or eight for 18.99 (including free p&p). Call 0330 333 6856, quoting ref GUA694. Or shop online at guardian.co.uk/oers/ plants. Delivery from October. Jane Perrone
ve, says: I like standing back after I have done a job and seeing how pretty the garden looks. The skills learned stretch beyond the classroom, with an after-school family gardening club proving so popular that the original one-hour activity regularly runs for three. The children use their garden in literacy, maths, science and geography. Each class has its own container and elects a head gardener, like Bo, responsible for its maintenance. And if the RHS needs further evidence that its campaign is on the right track, just ask Bo why he was elected. His answer is simple: Because I really wanted the job.
How to set up and run a successful school garden 1 Get the head and teachers on side to make sure the garden is part of the school development plan and seen as a key curriculum resource. 2 Develop an annual plan that ts the school year: growing crops that can be harvested before or after holidays and planning maintenance over the long summer break. 3 Ensure school gardening doesnt rely on the enthusiasm of a single person setting up a small group will ensure continuity. 4 Start with a few simple crops you can harvest quickly to get children and sta excited about growing.
5 Plan for fundraising so the garden becomes self-sustaining. 6 Try to involve families: send produce home with children to be cooked and eaten or ask for help building the garden. 7 Look to the wider community: approach local businesses and groups for help in giving time or providing resources. 8 Make sure the children are involved at all stages, from planning and designing to harvesting and tasting, so they learn new skills and feel the garden is really theirs. Schools can register free for the campaign at rhs.org.uk/ schoolgardening.
SPACE
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GARDENS
Alys Fowler Its easy to colour in your shaded areas
heres a strict hierarchy of shade. The damp, dappled shade of a deciduous tree with a thick layer of leaf mould is nirvana; the dry, parched shade of a building shadow or a monster leylandii quite the opposite. There are a few plants prepared to take on the challenges of dry shade. Geranium phaeum, known as the mourning widow, will grow in the dry, shallow soils of tree roots, though her name alone tells you shes a doleful sort. The more cheery, white-owered G. phaeum Album will bring light to dark corners. Likewise, Liriope muscari, with its spires of purple beaded owers, tolerates hot, dry sites. So will Vinca minor, the lesser periwinkle, slightly less of a thug than its cousin, V. major, the greater periwinkle. These are the safe choices beloved of oce plantings, but if you work at your soil, there are other options. Add a mixture of homemade compost and leaf mould. Gather grass cuttings from neighbours, sweep up leaves on the street, shred bills and collect scraps: your compost bin will convert dry shade into rich soil suited to woodland owers. Spread on a thick layer in early spring, and add a handful or two of well-rotted compost to every planting hole.
As for plants, stick to the true woodlanders, starting with a layer of bulbs such as snowdrops or Anemone nemorosa. Both are adapted for the deep summer shade of trees, making the most of the light in spring. They will do equally well in the shade of a building. Next, establish some ground cover, because exposed soil dries out quickly. Duchesnea indica, the false strawberry, is an evergreen perennial with jolly yellow owers and edible berries (see my 27 July column on edible ground cover for more: guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/ 2012/jul/27/alys-fowler-edibleground-cover). Add a few epimediums, easygoing plants with tiny lemon yellow or red owers peeping over evergreen heartshaped leaves. Next try bleeding hearts, (Lamprocapnos, formerly Dicentra spectabilis), plus Ladys mantle (Alchemilla mollis) and sweet cicely (Myrrhis odorata) for a soft green theme. For height, plant Thalictrum delavayi with its ethereal white owers, and Anemone sylvestris for late summer colour. Finally, add as many foxgloves as you see t. The common foxglove Digitalis purpurea (in purple or the pure white Alba) or the dusky pink Digitalis x mertonensis will tolerate dry or damp shade and lift your eye while the early spring plants are dying back.
ASK ALYS
We have a large Jerusalem artichoke bed. They grow like trees and last year did a sunower routine with yellow owers. The artichokes seem to be getting smaller but I want to leave them where they are. Would it help the tubers to grow if we chopped the heads o the plants at this stage? Chop the owers o if you wish, as a lot of energy is directed to owering rather than swelling the roots. I cut back the tops around July, particularly of the front row. This means they dont overshadow other plants, and I nd short plants survive autumn winds much better. I like the owers, so I sacrice the back row and let these ower. In early spring sift through the remaining tubers. Be ruthless and eat up or chuck out all the smaller tubers, keeping only the plumpest for next winters crop: even fragments will reshoot into plants. Keep only tubers the size of an egg and replant them 45cm apart in each direction. (The smaller ones I make into chutney : guardian.co.uk/ lifeandstyle/gardening-blog/2011/ nov/09/jerusalem-artichokechutney-alys-fowler). Do you have a question for Alys? Email askalys@guardian.co.uk
ALAMY (2)
SPACE
Lets move to Harlesden and Old Oak Common its aspiring to be The Next Big Place
Whats going for it? The common in question is more steel than oak, a curling mass of sidings and railway sheds which, one day, will metamorphose into the centre of the blooming universe to become the main London interchange between High Speed Two from The North and Crossrail. Harlesden has been quietly preparing for its moment in the sun. It has aspirations for the rst time since it was built in the 19th century, when the future was steam-powered. Brent Council appears to have invested in bollards and the odd patch of paving. Stonebridge estate, which once had a reputation, has gone, replaced by terraces and front gardens. People call Harlesden the new Acton, as it rubs shoulders with loftier suburbs, such as Queens Park and Kensal Rise. It is only a matter of time, they say, before this dusty corner becomes The Next Big Place. For now, Harlesden is neatened up, but still a riotous mash-up of Portuguese cas beside proper Irish pubs. When The North does arrive en masse, I can think of no ner welcome to The Smoke. The case against Public transport is great, but the place itself is on a weird urban peninsula, cut o by those sidings, Park Royal factories, and the North Circular. Well connected? Willesden Junction and Harlesden on the lovely Bakerloo Line, nipping you to central London in 20 minutes. Plus the overground to Euston and Watford and the weirdly wonderful North London Line from Richmond to the East End. Schools Primaries: Brenteld, Mitchell Brook, Leopold and Neweld are all good, notes Ofsted. Secondaries: Convent of Jesus and Mary, Newman Catholic College and Capital City Academy are all good, too.
Snooping around
IN THE COUNTRY
Nambol, near St Keverne, Cornwall. 550,000. Jackson Stops and Sta jackson-stops.co.uk. Because... Its in 0.25 acres of valley gardens with a spring running through. The enormous living room is softened by beams and an inglenook. Its a shame that... If you want a fourth bedroom you must sacrice the second reception and sleep o the kitchen/breakfast room.
GRAHAM TURNER FOPR THE GUARDIAN
AROUND TOWN
St Anns Place, New King Street, Bath. 350,000 Hamptons hamptons.co.uk. Because... Its a three-bedroom duplex in a Georgian building set in a courtyard of mews houses with parking. Its a shame that... Theres no garden. The bedrooms are on the lower ground oor.
FROM THE STREETS

Michael Goss Harlesden has Londons best Galician tapas bar, Centro Galego de Londres, situated between Harlesden and Old Oak Common. Plus Gostosa Pizzeria. Sophie Rena Up and coming, but not come yet. The high street is being pedestrianised, though, so maybe next year. Do you live in Beaminster? Do you have a favourite haunt or a pet hate? If so, please write, by next Tuesday, to lets.move@guardian.co.uk
Hang out at Jamaican Jerk Chicken Caribbean Take-Away. Rice and peas for me. Where to buy Beware places passing o as posher Willesden or Kensal Rise, especially leaer spots like the avenues of large, 1920s semis near Roundwood Park. I hereby declare Harlesden to begin south of the cemetery and Roundwood Park, and west of the sports centre. Market values Semis, 450,000850,000. Terraces, 325,000450,000, up to 600,000 in posher areas. Flats: three-bed period conversions, 260,000-360,000; two beds, 205,000-315,000; one bed, 180,000-235,000. Bargain of the week Three-bed terrace, close to the North Circular, but close to Ikea, too, 299,950, with Haart (haart.co.uk). Tom Dyckho Live in Harlesden? Join the debate at guardian.co.uk/letsmoveto
WRECK OF THE WEEK

Kearsney, near Dover, Kent. 300,000. Tersons (tersons.com). What? A sixbedroom detached 1930s house. Condition 75,000 to renew electrics, windows and to install heating. Why you should Theres planning permission for a detached house alongside it. Why you shouldnt Its on a private road so residents have to share the cost of upkeep. Anna Tims
SPACE
SPACE
ON THE ROAD
Sam Wollaston Ive made more friends through the Twizy than I have through the baby
eve lived where we do for more than ve years now, but dont really know anybody round here. Well, we didnt until recently; then a couple of things changed that. First we had ourselves a baby, and suddenly we knew half the street. Then I got a Renault Twizy for the weekend, and suddenly we knew the other half. I think Ive made more friends through the Twizy in a couple of days than I have with the baby in six months. Its like one of those tests magazines sometimes do whats a better pulling tool, a baby, a puppy or a Twizy? Im not sure about actually pulling (and anyway, Im not interested obviously, being very happy with the mother of the baby), but a Twizy is a good ice-breaker. Everyone wants to stop and chat. What the bloody hell is that, they
RENAULT TWIZY
Price From 6,690 Top speed 50mph Acceleration, 0-60mph No Range 60 miles CO2 emissions 0 Green rating 9/10 Cool rating 9/10 Practicality rating 2/10
want to know a vacuum cleaner, a printer cartridge, a roller skate, Wenlock? (From behind, it does look a bit like Wenlock, or possibly Mandeville.) What it is is Renaults new urban electric vehicle, with room for two (the passenger goes behind), a range of about 60 miles and a top speed of 50mph. You cant really call it a car it doesnt have windows, and even the doors are optional. Its a go-kart, basically, with a roof. Its a bit like a go-kart to drive, too, quick around the corners and fun, if a bit rm on the bumps. Ow! I make more new friends on the road. As a famous motoring journalist, Ive driven a lot of fancy cars, but none has created a stir like this. Its like being a celebrity. And the response is almost universally positive. Its like being a celebrity people actually like. Its like being Clare Balding, I imagine. There are problems; the usual
ones associated with electric vehicles. If you dont have o-street parking as most people dont in cities, where these cars belong you cant charge them at home. I cant charge at work, either, so Id have to go somewhere else, and sit around for three and a half hours while it charges up. Which is clearly useless. I cant even gure out where these places are, because the map of charge places I download is also useless. Suddenly the lovable Twizy is looking like an expensive toy. Theres another problem. It starts to rain, proper British rain. Its not so bad for me up front, but er indoors (well, outdoors) in the back, trying to balance two shopping bags on her knee, is getting soaked. The omission of windows is starting to look like an error. Fine on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice maybe, not ne in Angleterre. And its not even winter. Luckily, we left the baby with one of our new friends.
SIMON STUART-MILLER FOR THE GUARDIAN (2)
PUZZLES
Crossword, Scrabble and the Quiz Answers on page 83

GENERAL KNOWLEDGE CROSSWORD, BY SY
1 2 8 9 10 3 4 5 6 7
THE QUIZ, BY THOMAS EATON

1 Where did Larry register his rst kill in August? 2 Which was the rst family to have three generations of Oscar winners? 3 The Wassermann reaction was designed to test for what? 4 In US politics, what is a PAC? 5 What were the chances against anything manlike on Mars? 6 Wisent is another name for what animal? 7 Which states dispute NagornoKarabakh? 8 Stoke Poges golf course featured in which Bond lm? What links: 9 Mollie King; Una Healy; Rochelle Wiseman; Frankie Sandford; Vanessa White? 10 International Stud; Fugue In A Nursery; Widows And Children First!? 11 Toe loop; Axel; Flip; Lutz; Salchow? 12 CM Hallard (rstly, in 1935); Simon Ward; Timothy Spall; Albert Finney; Robert Hardy? 13 Kisangani; Mbandaka; Kinshasa; Brazzaville; Boma? 14 Lady Sarah McCorquodale and Lady Jane Fellowes? 15 Brilliant!; Freeze; Sensation; Modern Medicine?
11 12 13 14 16 17 19 20 21 18 15
SCRABBLE, BY STEWART HOLDEN

SCRABBLE IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF JW SPEARS & SONS LTD, UNDER LICENCE FROM MATTEL EUROPA BV, A SUBSIDIARY OF MATTEL INC, MATTEL 2009. ALL WORDS TO BE FOUND IN COLLINS SCRABBLE WORDS 2012 EDITION
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Across 1 Alan ...., star of the TV sitcom M*A*S*H (4) 3 1937 Picasso painting about a Basque village bombed by German and Italian forces (8) 9 Biscuits made by McVities (7) 10 Former province of South Africa (5) 11 Picturesque stretch of French river on which Nantes, Orlans and Tours are found (5,6) 13 Trade union representing actors (6) 15 HMS ......, nuclear submarine; its name means clever (6) 17 Gorge cut by Colorado river (5,6) 20 Pretentious person consigned to a corner of Private Eye (5) 21 ....... Grundy, born on Monday and buried on Sunday (7) 22 Capital of Cuban province whose name means massacre (8) 23 The Young ...., 1961 musical, 80s sitcom (4) Down 1 Character in Homers Iliad, whose weakness was his heel (8) 2 City/emirate in United Arab Emirates (5) 4 Dawn ......, opera singer best known for her vocals on the 1993 recording of Greckis Symphony Number 3 (6) 5 Cartoonist best known for his St Trinians and Molesworth drawings (6,6) 6 Hes Just Not That .... ..., 2009 movie starring Ben Aeck and Jennifer Aniston (4,3) 7 .... Lang Syne, poem by Robert Burns (4) 8 Area of London associated with Royal Opera House (6,6) 12 Waylon ........ (1937 2002), American country music singer (8) 14 Soothing preparation spread on wounds (7) 16 Crimean port, home to the stairs seen in Battleship Potemkin (6) 18 Country in Middle East, capital Sanaa (5) 19 Unwanted mail, usually electronic (4)
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With the rack of letters (right), nd a way to score 48 points in one move Triple word Double word
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ALAMY
BACK
Your pictures This weeks theme: layers

1 Tatiana Heise I spotted these sheep in north Wales. The telephoto made them appear to be standing on top of one another, but they were in fact quite happy. 2 Amy Moran Climbing the layers in the rice paddies, Ubud, Bali. 3 Peter Jackson & Hannah Mackay The Gum Wall at Pike Place Market, Seattle the sickly-sweet smell greets you before you reach the alleyway. 4 Chas Hallett Taken at Norbiton station while waiting for the train to Waterloo.
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Next topic: Windswept (to appear 6 October). Email a hi-res image (one per entry; all submissions must be your own work), plus a sentence describing your photo and a daytime phone number, to in.pictures@ guardian.co.uk by noon on Wednesday 25 September (conditions apply see guardian. co.uk/theguardian/ weekend/in-picturesterms-and-conditions). To suggest a future theme, email in.pictures.themes@ guardian.co.uk

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guardian weekend 22.09.

Harry who? h J JK Rowling -wli g the next chapter

FOOD & DRINK

MIND & RELATIONSHIPS

The Guardian Weekend | 22 September 2012 5

A dissertation about newspaper columnists? Sounds

The Guardian Weekend | 22 September 2012 7

ILLUSTRATION: BENOIT JACQUES FOR THE GUARDIAN

Your view Letters, emails, comments

8 22 September 2012 | The Guardian Weekend

Big picture Urban Exploration, by Bradley Garrett

The Guardian Weekend | 22 September 2012 11

12 22 September 2012 | The Guardian Weekend

THOMAS BUTLER FOR THE GUARDIAN

Experience I lost the power of language

JONATHAN BIRCH FOR THE GUARDIAN

16 22 September 2012 | The Guardian Weekend

AS TOLD TO BECKY BARNICOAT

20 22 September 2012 | The Guardian Weekend

32 22 September 2012 | The Guardian Weekend

I caught a curse. Its like smoking. You cannae give them up

42 22 September 2012 | The Guardian Weekend

GETTY IMAGES; REX

SPENCER MURPHY FOR THE GUARDIAN

Beyond the velodrome

52 22 September 2012 | The Guardian Weekend

The Guardian Weekend | 22 September 2012 53

The Guardian Weekend | 22 September 2012 55

56 22 September 2012 | The Guardian Weekend

The Guardian Weekend | 22 September 2012 57

58 22 September 2012 | The Guardian Weekend

ALL IMAGES BRYAN ADAMS, 2012

Helena Maria Kidacka

EMILY STEIN FOR THE GUARDIAN

The Guardian Weekend | 22 September 2012 65

All ages Fine and dandy

Wish list What we like this week

68 22 September 2012 | The Guardian Weekend

How to dress The leather forecast

GET THE LOOK

Autumn style icons Carey Mulligans signature cinchedwaist dresses

70 22 September 2012 | The Guardian Weekend

Get the look Sali Hughes on anti-shine products

What I see in the mirror

RUI FARIA FOR THE GUARDIAN; EYEVINE

The Guardian Weekend | 22 September 2012 73

ICE-CREAM WITH FROZEN RASPBERRIES AND HOT CHOCOLATE FUDGE SAUCE

74 22 September 2012 | The Guardian Weekend

FOOD PHOTOGRAPHY: COLIN CAMPBELL FOR THE GUARDIAN

CRAB CAKES WITH CHILLED FENNEL AND APPLE SALAD

AUTUMN VEG CHILLI WITH CHILLED GUACAMOLE

The Guardian Weekend | 22 September 2012 75

FOOD & DRINK

Berger & Wyse

The Guardian Weekend | 22 September 2012 77

KATHERINE ROSE (2)

FRIED BRIK PARCELS WITH APPLE AND CLOVE

VERMICELLI, BEEF AND CHICKPEA CASSEROLE

COLIN CAMPBELL FOR THE GUARDIAN. FOOD STYLING: CLAIRE PTAK

The Guardian Weekend | 22 September 2012 79

CHOCOLATE CURD CAKES

1 tsp baking powder Toasted almonds or pine nuts