John Richard - articles

Aberdeen 1-3 Celtic

2009-08-16T20:06:44+01:00

Clydesdale Bank Scottish Premier League
Venue: Pittodrie Stadium Date: Saturday 15 August Kick-off: 1245 BST
Coverage: BBC Sport website, BBC Radio Scotland

Jerel Ifil is set to make his Aberdeen debut in the Premier League curtain-raiser against Celtic.

Zander Diamond, Michael Paton and Bertrand Bossu have all recovered from injury, with Tommy Wright absent.

Gary Caldwell is suspended for Celtic's trip to Pittodrie, due to a ban carried over from last season.

With Stephen McManus still out injured, Darren O'Dea could be set to partner Glenn Loovens in the centre of defence and Scott Brown is also likely to play.

Aberdeen (from): Langfield, Diamond, Mulgrew, Considine, Ifil, Pawlett, Duff, MDonald, Foster, Kerr, Aluko, Young, Miller, Mackie, Maguire, Nelson, Stewart, Ross, Crawford, Holm, Megginson, Paton, Bossu.

Celtic (from): Boruc, Hinkel, Loovens, Naylor, Fox, McGeady, Donati, N'Guemo, Maloney, McDonald, Samaras, Caddis, Flood, Fortune, Brown, Zaluska, O'Dea, Caddis, Crosas, Killen.

Checking out of 'Hotel America'

2009-08-04T06:21:13+01:00

After an eventful eight years in Washington, the BBC's North America editor Justin Webb has mixed feelings about his imminent return to the UK.

"If you do not like your life and you have drive and luck, you can change it because - being American - you believe you can change it "

"You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave…"

America was not designed to be left. The opposite in fact - it was designed to be arrived in.

It was programmed to receive and - as was the case in the Eagles' song Hotel California - there is some wonderment at the front desk when you try to go.

For effect, I sometimes exaggerate our sadness at the end of our time in America, result: confusion.

"Our British home is in south London so we'll probably all be murdered before Christmas."

"Oh, my gosh, um, why not stay" Because you have no sense of humour, would be one answer. But it is not why we are leaving.

In more than seven years of life in America, I have come to value - to love, actually - the stolid, sunny, unchallenging, simple virtuousness of the American suburban psyche.

The woman who is to sell our house is a prime specimen. She is perky. Nothing gets her down, not even the fact that we are selling in the midst of the biggest depression since the Great Flood. In this area it is different.

"You have a lovely home!"

But she thinks we have too many books. She does not say so but she talks of creating spaces on the shelves - for snow-globes, perhaps, or silver photo frames with perfect children showing off perfect teeth.

This is a cultural thing. When selling a home in America, you have to pretend that you do not live there.

No, you have to pretend that no-one lives there. Or ever has.

Previously owned homes are of course the norm for us Europeans. We understand that previous generations have made their mark. This means - as we English know, having grown up with rattling windows and mouldy grouting - that a home will be imperfect.

They do not make such allowances in America.

Illusion of safety

So the inspector's report, the survey, is the cause of much deliberation and soul-searching with our potential buyers.

An outside light is not working properly. A tap is leaking. A chimney needs investigation.

"I feel crazy going back to the old world"

As I read it, my mind turns to our house in London which is actually falling down - somebody omitted to prop up the middle when an arch was cut in a downstairs room 100 years ago - but which is still eminently saleable.

The English understand that we are all falling down. Dust to dust, we intuit. Americans do not. They have not got there yet.

Truth be told, I would rather be them than us. I admire the concern over the chimney and the belief that the problem can be fixed.

I sit on the porch, in the growing evening heat of the Washington spring, the cicadas chirruping and the sound of lawns being mowed, and yearn to be staying. It would be so easy, so uncomplicated, so safe.

And yet of course - like the perfect home we tried to create - this safety is an illusion.

Route 17

From Washington let me take you south 600 miles (965 km) or so to the state of South Carolina.

In the steamy heat of the night, cicadas deafening in these parts, breeze all but non-existent, I drove Route 17 south, out of Charleston and down into the low country, the salt marshes.

Charleston is one of America's most elegant cities, but Route 17 is not on any tourist maps, at least not as an attraction in its own right.

In a sense though, it should be. It gives a wonderful insight into hardscrabble American life, the sleazy glamour of the road that repels and appeals to visitors - and indeed Americans themselves - in roughly equal measure: gas stations, tattoo parlours, Bojangles Pizza, $59 (£35)-a-night motels, pawn shops, gun shops, car showrooms, nail bars, and Piggly Wiggly, the local supermarket chain which, in my limited experience, smells almost as odd as it sounds.

It is a panorama of the mundane: Doric columns a-plenty but all of them made of cheap concrete and attached to restaurants or two-bit accountants' offices. On and on it goes, encroaching into the palm forests with no hint of apology.

'Bible-laced hypocrisy'

As it happens, I am due to visit one of those forests and the following morning I find myself standing next to a black, four-wheel-drive vehicle and another quintessentially American phenomenon. A politician mired in Bible-laced hypocrisy.

At the time I met Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina, just a few months ago, I didn't know about the hypocrisy. But I should have guessed when he offered to let me in to a secret. He was a closet tiller of fields, he said, and liked nothing better than to get out with his boys and work the land.

A little too wholesome to be true.

Weeks after telling me that all-American story, it transpired that he was also ploughing furrows in foreign fields. The man disappeared only to turn up in Buenos Aires with an Argentine woman who was not Mrs Sanford.

This from a man who, when he was a congressman, lived in some peculiar Christian fellowship house in DC. It did not stop his Doric columns from being false.

Zest for life

And yet for all the ugliness, the deadening tawdriness of much of the American landscape and the tinny feebleness of many of its politicians - for all that nastiness and shallowness and flakiness - there is no question in my mind that to live here has been the greatest privilege of my life.

The immensity of America, the energy and the zest for life remind me sometimes of India. And as with India, where I spent some time for the BBC many moons ago, America shines a light on the entire human condition.

Few other nations really do. Italy reveals truths about Italians, Afghanistan about Afghans, Fiji about Fijians. But America speaks to the whole of humanity because the whole of humanity is represented here; our possibilities and our propensities.

Often what is revealed is unpleasing; truths that are not attractive or wholesome or hopeful.

On the last day we spent in our home in north-east Washington, they were holding a food-eating competition in a burger bar at the end of our street. The sight was nauseating: acne-ridden youths, several already obese, stuffing meat and buns into their mouths while local television reporters, the women in dinky pastel suits, rushed around getting the best shots.

America can be seen as little more than an eating competition, a giant, gaudy, manic effort to stuff grease and gunge into already sated innards.

You could argue that the sub-prime mortgage crisis - the Ground Zero of the world recession - was caused mainly by greed: a lack of proportion, a lack of proper respect for the natural way of things that persuaded companies to stuff mortgages into the mouths of folks whose credit rating was always likely to induce an eventual spray of vomit.

There is an intellectual ugliness as well: a dark age lurking, even when the president has been to Harvard. The darkness epitomised by the recent death in Wisconsin of a little girl who should still be alive.

Stone-Age superstitions

Eleven-year-old Kara Neumann was suffering from type one diabetes, an auto-immune condition my son was recently diagnosed with.

Her family, for religious reasons, decided not to take her to hospital. They prayed by her bedside and the little girl died.

The night before she died - and she would have been in intense discomfort - her parents called the founder of a religious website and prayed with him on the telephone. But they did not call a doctor.

If Kara had been taken to hospital, even at that late stage, insulin could have saved her. She could have been home in a few days and chirpy by the end of the week, as my son was.

It was an entirely preventable death caused, let's be frank, by some of the Stone Age superstition that stalks the richest and most technologically advanced nation on earth.

I deplore the superstition and the eating competitions and the tatty dreariness of so much of America, and I note that the new president is also unimpressed by the infrastructure and not a fan of fat but, after more than seven years living here, I am increasingly convinced that these elements of the nation are not the flip side of the greatness of America, they are part of that greatness.

There is something about the carelessness of America that gives space for greatness.

Making it big

Out on route 17 in South Carolina, you can do very well or very badly. You can crash and burn, or you can fill up with cheap petrol and ride off into the sunset. If you do not like yourself in South Carolina, you can hire a self-drive hire truck and take it to Seattle. If you do not like your life and you have drive and luck, you can change it because - being American - you believe you can change it.

Sitting in a dingy apartment in New York watching Perry Mason on the TV, you can decide to make it big in law as eight-year-old Sonia Sotomayor once did.

This summer, now in her fifties, she becomes a Supreme Court justice and the latest American story to send shivers down the spines of dreamers of the American dream.

But if Sonia Sotomayor is to make it big, there must be something creating the drive, and part of that something is the poverty of the alternative, the discomfort of the ordinary lives that most Americans endure and the freedom that Americans have to go to hell if that is the decision they take.

This is the atmosphere in which Nobel Prize winners are nurtured. A nation which will one day mass produce a cure for type one diabetes, could not, would not, save little Kara Neumann from the bovine idiocy of her religious parents.

More than 300 million people live here now, settlers from all over the world. From Ho Chi Minh City, from Timbuktu, from Vilnius, from Tehran, from every last corner of the earth, they have made America their home and they are still streaming in.

I feel crazy going back to the old world. My five-year-old daughter Clara, who is the proud owner of an American passport, agrees.

She says she intends to leave home, at around 12-years-old, and return to her native land. I do not blame her.

If you are willing to chance your arm, if you back yourself, if you want to live the life, America is still the place to be. Drive out on Route 17 and take a chance!

So that's it from me, I am checking out. But part of me can never leave…

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Accused 'stole to cover losses'

2009-08-04T06:21:03+01:00

A husband on trial for his wife's murder stole hundreds of pounds from her to cover stock market losses, the High Court in Perth has heard.

Nabeel Khan, 44, said he took more than £600 from Dr Iffat Kamal while she was in India giving birth to their son.

Mr Khan has admitted strangling his wife at their home in Dundee but his culpable homicide plea was rejected.

Dr Kamal, 39, died in Ninewells Hospital, where she worked as a pathologist, in December last year.

Mr Khan told the court that he had taken the money from his wife's account in 2006 and had paid the cash back.

The former banking advisor said he had been spending between £100 and £200 a month from 2005 until late December chasing betting losses on the internet.

He told the jury that he had no issue with staying at home to look after his son and stepson while his wife was the main breadwinner.

He said: "I was proud of her that she was a professional. I was not resentful about it."

"I lost my self-control and I am deeply ashamed"

Nabeel Khan

Mr Khan said he could remember everything which happened before and immediately after his fatal attack upon Dr Kamal, but insisted his mind was blank for the critical period.

However, when Advocate Depute Alan McKay asked if he had put his arms around his wife's neck, he replied: "I definitely did. I don't remember perfectly well. It was just like a flash that I had that I did that.

"After that the only recollection I have is that I was trying to revive my wife."

Mr McKay asked: "Why can you remember what happened after and before this event, but not during it"

Mr Khan replied: "I can't explain it."

"You strangled her," Mr McKay said.

Mr Khan replied: "That's correct sir."

Mr McKay said: "You put your arm around her neck and quite deliberately strangled her. It was a good old-fashioned loss of temper was it not"

Mr Khan said: "I never lost my temper this way in my life before sir. I lost my self-control and I am deeply ashamed."

Mr Khan denies murdering Dr Kamal by slapping her face, seizing her throat and compressing it until she was so severely injured she died at Ninewells Hospital from her injuries on 20 December.

The trial continues.

Moore movie competes at Venice

2009-08-04T06:20:59+01:00

Capitalism, the latest documentary from Fahrenheit 9/11 director Michael Moore, is in the official competition at this year's Venice Film Festival.

The film, in which Moore looks at the global economic meltdown, is one of 23 titles up for the Golden Lion award.

Others include Werner Herzog's remake of The Bad Lieutenant, starring Nicolas Cage, and Survival of the Dead, George A Romero's latest zombie thriller.

The 66th Venice International Film Festival runs from 2 to 12 September.

Worker dies on factory's last day

2009-08-04T06:19:52+01:00

Staff working the last day at a washing machine factory have left early after the death of a colleague during the final shift at the plant.

Some employees said the death was the "last straw" for the 302-strong workforce, which is now redundant.

Management at the plant allowed them to leave early after the man, 44, died.

He was said to have worked at the plant for 20 years and collapsed at around 0900 BST. He was taken to Glan Clwyd Hospital where he died.

Jason Dwan, manufacturing site director at Indesit said: "We can confirm that a 44-year-old employee fell ill at the factory this morning.

"First aiders were on scene immediately with our employee and a local ambulance arrived within 10 minutes of the call.

"We have to find ways of keeping these skills so they aren't lost from the area"

Ann Jones AM

"Our HR manager was with the family straight away as he was accompanied to the local hospital, Glan Clwyd.

"At 0920 it was unfortunately confirmed that our employee had sadly passed away.

"His family have been informed.

"Immediately all work stopped at the factory, and our employees have now left the site as a mark of respect to his family."

Mr Dwan said it was a "tragedy" for the factory and extended his sympathies to the man's family on behalf of the company.

Indesit has been a major employer at Bodelwyddan since 1954, but production is moving abroad.

The company also makes the Hotpoint brand, and has blamed increased production costs and falling demand.

It said a number of options for the site were considered but all parties agreed they were not viable.

The loss of the jobs has been described as a "very sad day" for the area by those who campaigned to keep it open.

Vale of Clwyd AM Ann Jones said: "These are highly skilled manufacturing jobs and, somehow, we have to find ways of keeping these skills so they are not lost from the area."

The union expects production to be switched to Poland.

There has been a washing machine factory in the Bodelwyddan area since the early 1980s and it was taken over by Indesit in 2002.

It has made predominantly Hotpoint machines and as recently as 2004 employed 750 workers at the Kinmel Park site.

Indesit has two other bases in the UK, in Somerset and Peterborough, and claims to be the largest white goods company in the country.

Carlos Ramos, Indesit's UK Manufacturing Director said: "The work force at Kinmel Park has remained very loyal to the company and has a very positive attitude to work.

"This, combined with the wide range of skills and experience they have acquired means they have a lot to offer potential new employers."

Weather graphics

2009-08-04T06:19:47+01:00

In the week that the Met Office revised its prediction of a "barbecue summer", find out how July 2009 compares with summers past.

There's no doubt July has been a washout, made more miserable by memories of last month's heatwave - if you live anywhere but the far north, that is.

The regional breakdown of July's weather (above) shows England, the South West and south Wales suffered the most, with above-average rainfall and below-average sunshine.

The only area to show (very slight) above-average sunshine was northern Scotland.

That's because the depression that caused the unsettled weather missed those in the Shetlands and Orkneys, who must be wondering what all the fuss is about.

The UK as a whole experienced a damp July.

The month's average rainfall was 121.3mm (until 27 July) - far above the average of 69.6mm.

Still, it's not the wettest July in the UK.

That record belongs to the year 1988, when 145.3mm of rain fell. And remember the floods of 2007 Two years ago, England and Wales suffered their wettest July on record with a rainfall of 136mm.

While rain has been coming down by the bucket-load, sunshine has been hard to come by.

The average amount of monthly sunshine for July is 174.3 hours and this year to date (27 July) we've had 149.5 hours. The sunniest July was back in 1955 with 256 hours.

While rain has been plentiful and sunshine scarce this month, the Met Office says temperatures up until 29 July have been slightly above average, with the far north doing better than other areas.

Only Wales had a slightly below-average maximum temperature - 18.3C compared with the average 19.1C.

Scotland show the best warmer-than-average maximum of 17.7C compared with its July average maximum of 16.9C.

And the outlook for August The Met Office predicts an "unsettled" start of the month and "near normal" temperatures, but is cautiously optimistic about a sunnier, drier late August.

Mean maximum July temperatures, 2001-2008

Hotel agrees compensation payout

2009-08-04T06:19:42+01:00

A toddler who sued one of the country's top family hotels for £4,000 has won a payout in an out-of-court settlement.

Sheonaidh Nisbet's parents took legal action against the owners of Crieff Hydro after she was left scarred during a break at the Perthshire hotel.

The three-year-old fell and cut open her chin while walking with her family in the grounds of the four-star hotel.

The girl's father, William Nisbet, said the settlement would be placed in trust for his daughter.

The family's legal claim stated that the hotel - which advertises itself as Scotland's most child-friendly - failed in its duty of care to residents.

According to court papers filed at Perth Sheriff Court, the Nisbets were walking with their children past seating outside the Brasserie Restaurant when Sheonaidh fell in May last year.

The court writ stated: "As Sheonaidh was walking she tripped, lost her footing and fell onto a protruding metal water service cover located on the grass. There was nothing to warn persons it was protruding from the grass.

"As a result of falling, Sheonaidh suffered loss, injury and damage."

Striking red hair

As a result of the fall, the three-year-old, who was described as "distressed, crying and in pain" and "bleeding profusely", was taken to casualty at Crieff Hospital.

There her wound was cleaned and paper stitches were applied.

Medical evidence submitted to the court said the child would be left scarred as a result of her accident, and that scarring would take longer to fade because of her striking red hair.

Mr Nisbet, from Kennoway in Fife, said: "We did what we felt was right and fair for our daughter. We have spent many happy times at Crieff Hydro and were saddened by their lack of concern following her injury.

"They never once enquired as to her well being. Our child is precious to us and should not be subjected to pain and injury from organisational neglect.

"Sheonaidh may opt to have cosmetic surgery in adulthood and this will be her choice. Her settlement in respect of her injury is safely placed in a trust for her until then."

The payout is believed to be in the region of about £2,500.