an independent view for the leisure industry
Sunday 1 February
A salvage company reckons it has found the remains of HMS Victory off Alderney.
Monday 2 February
Ooh! It’s snowing and the whole country goes out to play. Tipping Point is to offer an annual prize for artists who tackle climate change. In a show of great faith in global warming, all advance tickets for Glastonbury have sold out. With the £50 million for Diana and Actaeon raised in five months, the National Gallery and the National Gallery of Scotland are now trying to raise another £50 million for the accompanying piece, Diana and Callista. Boris Johnson announces the suspension of phase three of the London low-emission zone that was scheduled for vans and minibuses in October 2010. Angola will be hosting the 2010 African Nations Cup and launches a tourism programme to encourage visitors. It seems that the RFU have been talking to British Cycling about performance coaching and specialist advice has travelled from Manchester to Twickenham. Meanwhile, just to show why it’s going in that direction, Roger Hammond wins the second stage of the Tour of Qatar to follow the first-stage victory by Bradley Wiggins and his Garmin team mates.
Tuesday 3 February
Tom Boonen hears that he will not be facing criminal prosecution following his positive test for cocaine last year. He celebrates with a stage win in Qatar. Curtains up on nominations for the Olivier awards in celebration of British theatre. A mass outbreak of festivity in the snow quickly followed by accusations of Britain as a nation of skivers and the first snow-related injuries. Ofsted says that half of school music lessons are not good enough despite the government’s pledge to provide musical opportunities for all children. Remember Degas’ Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans (see World of Leisure passim)? It sells for £13.3 million at auction, making the owner, Reading’s own John Madejski, a tidy £8 million profit in five years.
Wednesday 4 February
The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust announces the Shakespeare hall of fame that will be part of the refurbished venue when it reopens later this year; let artistic debate begin. The Kids in Museums organisation launches its report at the Royal Academy, the venue from which the children of the report’s author were dismissed, prompting the campaign’s birth. The British Council suspends its operations in Iran following allegations of intimidation by the local authorities. Sports minister Gerry Sutcliffe urges the Premier League to show it is “committed to sport all the way down” even though, by definition, intent and action, it isn’t; the next TV deal is thought to be heading towards a £2.7 billion total price tag. Dave Brailsford tells the all-party parliamentary cycling group that the success of British Cycling should be part of increased participation across the country, allowing the super-medal machine to “connect back”. Gerry Sutcliffe again: a new independent anti-doping body with a £7 million annual budget will be in operation by the end of the year. Bad news for professional golfers: Tiger is now able to hit the ball better than ever now that “my bones aren’t grinding against each other”.
Thursday 5 February
Prince Charles suggests that Dharavi, a slum in Mumbai, is a model for designing localism and neighbourliness into modern housing. American author James Patterson is the most-borrowed scribbler in the British library system. Olympics minister, Tessa Jowell, says that the £196 million increase in facility construction costs have been offset by savings elsewhere, meaning that only an extra £3 million is needed. In Jamaica England experience for the first time Test match cricket in which all pretence of the umpire being in charge of the game has been abandoned; it doesn’t seem to do them much good. Sighs of relief across Wales and beyond as Joe Calzaghe announces that he is to retire from boxing as undefeated champion of the world. Michael Grade apologises to all and sundry for the fact that ITV Sport managed to put viewers through almost 120 minutes of a turgid FA Cup before cutting to an unexpected advert break just in time to miss Everton scoring the only goal of the game. Michel Platini shows how far he is removed from the real world of football by suggesting that Manchester City should focus on bringing their own players through their academy rather than trying to buy in superstars such as Kaka. In a similar vein Scotland’s first minister, Alex Salmond, suggests that it’s about time that the Royal and Ancient admitted women to membership. Alleged Cheech and Chong extra Michael Phelps says he might decide not to compete at London 2012.
Friday 6 February
The Rugby Football Union is facing a 27% drop in corporate hospitality bookings for the Six Nations matches. Over in the land of the round ball Niall Quinn says Sunderland’s decision to cut next year’s season ticket prices by at least £30, with accompanied children at £1, was driven by the club’s “moral responsibility” to its fans. Ever alert to the opportunity for irony, the Premier League announces that its TV contracts will bring in a record £1.78 billion for domestic rights. Mark Cavendish rounds off the Tour of Qatar with a stage victory, meaning that Tom Boonen was the only non-British stage winner of the week-long race.
Saturday 7 February
Delton and Steffon Armitage become the first brothers to play rugby for England since the Underwood boys. Children’s laureate, Michael Rosen, calls for boring books to be kept out of the classroom. With Michael Phelps still coming down, Alex Rodriguez, modern baseball legend and one of America’s biggest sporting stars, is rumoured to have been the subject of a positive test for steroids. No performance-enhancing allegations for England, who are bowled out for 51 by the Windies at Sabina Park.
Sunday 8 February
Slumdog Millionaire wins plenty at the Baftas. American Jennifer Figge claims to have become the first woman to swim the Atlantic. A Premier League referee says that some overseas players were asking for bookings so that they could have Christmas off. Meanwhile the FA laments the disappearance of the top women players to the USA; the home of football’s esteemed governing body has been planning central contracts but it seems that it’s a case of too little, too late in the face of the Women’s Professional Soccer league putting money on the table. Tom Daley dives his way to the 10m platform title at the British diving championships.
Monday 9 February
Scientists offer biological advice to curators at the fourth Cultural Heritage Conservation Forum in Caracas, Venezuela. Seven months in and Big Phil Scolari is invited to vacate Stamford Bridge with only £8 million in severance pay to his name. The Institute of Education suggests that children looked after in nurseries are likely to be more sociable than those with grandparents in charge. Lots of British success at the Grammy music awards in Los Angeles while Jane Fonda announces her return to the Broadway stage. Tony McCoy hits 3,000 National Hunt winners at Plumpton.
Tuesday 10 February
Mark Wallinger’s big white horse is chosen by the Ebbsfleet Landmark Project to be the southern equivalent of the Angel of the North. Tessa Jowell and Boris Johnson unveil a public consultation on the legacy of the Olympic park, revealing plans for a sports college and an HQ for the leisure sector’s National Skills Academy on the site. Would-be TV sports contender Setanta asks for an urgent meeting with the Premier League to see if there is any football they can show. Newcastle United’s accounts show that the club’s former owners, the Halls and the Shepherds, profited during their tenure to the collective tune of £146 million. Mark Clark, head coach of the GB women’s basketball squad, resigns. Karren Brady is arrested as part of the continuing enquiry into corruption in football; she continues to protest her innocence. Manchester City remove Thaksin Shinawatra as club president and the Premier League is reported to be considering a quota for home-grown players.
Wednesday 11 February
Mark-Anthony Turner is writing an opera based on the life of Anna Nicole Smith. Manchester City Council decides that the time has come to take down The B of the Bang rather than spend any more public money on stopping bits falling off it. The projected cost of the Building for Schools scheme has risen from £45 billion to £55 billion. The New Zealand government assigns the intellectual property rights of the haka to Ngati Toa, a group of tribes on the North Island. The Spanish tourism board admits that the photos used to tempt visitors to the Costa Brava were taken in the Bahamas. Guus Hiddink is installed at Chelsea until the end of the season; expect a new approach to training and restricted access to the biscuit tin. Lance Armstrong, who returned to professional cycling with big plans for an independent and transparent drug testing regime, says the scheme was too expensive.
Thursday 12 February
Senior civil servants are revealed as having an enormous appetite for all things cultural, particularly when paid for by corporations seeking favour. The Queen launches her latest website and financial authorities in the USA launch an investigation into the business affairs of Sir Allen Stanford, the noted Test-match loathing cricket fan.
Friday 13 February
England People Very Nice, a play by Richard Bean staged at the National Theatre, prompts offence among some for its treatment of race issues. Sam Davies is the first Brit across the line in the Vendee Globe race; she is one of the eleven finishers from the thirty that were on the start line. In Antigua the Test match at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium is abandoned after ten deliveries.
Saturday 14 February
Wales beat England at the Millennium Stadium. Both Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton have now hit the deck heavily during the Copenhagen leg of the track cycling world cup competition, putting their form for next month’s world championships in question. Dwain Chambers sets the fastest time in the world this year for 60m. George Benjamin’s new opera, Into the Little Hill, is performed in the bar of the Covent Garden opera house after a powercut hits the original performance area.
Sunday 15 February
A major fire in the centre of Blackpool damages a number of historic buildings, including Yates’s, the wine lodge. University vice-chancellors warn that with record-breaking levels of applications for courses competition for places will be fierce. English Heritage expresses concerns that the world of metal detecting has spawned a developing criminal industry in historical artefacts. The United Arab Emirates refuses Shahar Peer a visa, which means that the Israeli professional tennis player will not be able to play in the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championship. A number of British tourism companies write to the PM to request government tourism interests are transferred from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. The Football Association unveils plans to follow the gender-equity approach of Swedish football after a fact-finding mission.
Monday 16 February
Tony Blair is to receive a $1 million prize for “leadership skills” from the Dan David Foundation. The Local Government Association says that one in seven local authorities are planning to cut jobs. Andrew Motion says that a knowledge of the ‘great stories’ of the major religions and Greek traditions are essential to an understanding of literature. The Simpsons gets a new intro to mark the arrival of high definition television in Springfield. The Scottish Premier League discusses taking action against Rangers after the usual sectarian chanting during the Old Firm game. The World Anti-doping Authority meets with officials from a number of sports to make the case for stricter drug testing. Flavio Briatore says that the Renault Formula One team has a “solid future”. Start the clock.
Tuesday 17 February
David Mills, financier extraordinaire, former friend of Silvio Berlusconi and estranged husband of Olympics minister Tessa Jowell, is sentenced to four and half years in jail by an Italian court; a lengthy appeals process is expected. ‘Sir’ Allen Stanford is accused of a banking fraud “of shocking magnitude” by American financial regulators, prompting a run on his Antiguan bank and some queasiness around the corridors of Lord’s. A theatre company is to take over Brighton’s pier for a promenade production of Orton’s comedy The Erpingham Camp in May. Other stage news includes Jerry Springer signing up for the role of Billy Flynn in the London production of Chicago. Contractors working on the 2012 velodrome are treading increasingly carefully as the investigate the veracity of local folklore suggesting that there are a number of unexploded bombs on site. China is reportedly ready to launch the world’s first professional diving league later this year and Chris Hoy takes time out from tending his bruises to unveil a British Airways jet named after himself (or Himself, as we may have to call him from now on).
Wednesday 18 February
Brit awards for Duffy while the Ocean Nova, an Antarctic cruise ship, runs aground off Debenham island. Georgio Armani marks the opening of a new store in New York with a $1 million donation for arts education in the city’s schools. Disquiet in Italian political circles as Rome contemplates staging a Formula One grand prix. It seems that the RFU will launch a solo bid for the 2015 rugby world cup.
Thursday 19 February
Government plans for stringent measures to prevent touts profiting from trade in tickets for music and sports events are unveiled in a consultation document. The National Trust, the UK’s biggest private landowner, announces its support for a scheme to create allotments on disused land. Olympic Leisure Watch, long-since retired, stirs only to note that the bank bail-outs have added £1.5 trillion to the public debt figures. The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health stresses the dangers of coin-operated sunbeds after a fourteen-year-old girl is badly burned at an unsupervised salon. The National Gallery and the Tate reach agreement that their respective collections will take the year 1900 as a cut-off point. In Italy Gordon Brown says that there is no question of Tessa Jowell being removed from her ministerial position following her husband’s conviction in an Italian court. Thailand launches its own national cocktail, the Siam sunray, as part of its tourism marketing campaign. The UAE issues Israeli tennis player Andy Ram with a visa, having refused the same to his compatriot Shahar Peer for the women’s event.
Friday 20 February
Kath Mainland is appointed chief executive of the Edinburgh fringe festival and warns of funding difficulties in light of the climate for sponsorship. Similar stories in Egypt where plans for an underwater gallery to display submerged architectural and sculptural treasures is running into funding and technical problems. Fabio Capello admits that he has a bit of trouble with northern dialects when the England team get together. Sir Bobby Robson opens the new Cancer Trials Research Centre at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle, which has been named in his honour. The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) announce that their relationship with ‘Sir’ Allen Stanford is officially at an end. Inspector Knacker says that a BNP rally in Liverpool is cause for Everton to postpone their home game against Stoke.
Saturday 20 February
Sponsorship facilitators Arts and Business say that sponsorship for the arts is set for a significant decline. Leading figures from the arts world begin a campaign against stringent visa regulation that are, they say, making it difficult for artists and performers to visit the UK. Writer Christopher Nolan, who found literary fame with Dam Burst of Dreams, dies at the age of 44. Andy Burnham is to take issue with Liverpool police for postponing the Everton match, particularly as the BNP has now postponed. The Premier League chief executive, Richard Scudamore, rejects Uefa proposals for a wage cap for professional football.
Sunday 22 February
In Hollywood the Academy Awards go Slumdog crazy and Kate Winslett tops her mum’s recent victory in the pub pickled onion competition (see the Reading Evening Post passim) with a best actress Oscar. Staff staging a sit-in at the Waterford Crystal factory since its closure have been offering guided tours for visitors. FIFA has suggested extending the half-time break for games at the world cup to twenty minutes to enable TV companies to sell more advertising.
Monday 23 February
Greenway, Agatha Christie’s Devon summer home, is scheduled to open to the public for the first time this week after that National Trust’s £4.5 million restoration. The National Museum in Baghdad re-opens almost six years after invading forces watched looters strip it of its treasures; many but not all of the museum’s artefacts have been returned. Giles Clarke is re-elected as chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board after an unblemished record of achievement and integrity. Skills secretary, John Denham, announces plans for twenty thousand apprenticeships within the public sector.
Tuesday 24 February
British Waterways launches a campaign to persuade supermarkets to tackle the issue of abandoned trolleys; BW spends £150,000 a year fishing them out. A statue of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother is unveiled on the Mall by the Queen. Artist Maurice Agis is found guilty of breaching health and safety guidelines after two people were killed in 2006 when his inflatable art work was blown from its moorings. Malibu, California bans speedboarders from its roads for fear of litigation; the general response from the skateboarding fraternity: “Bummer.” The budget for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia will be cut by two thirds.
Wednesday 25 February
Arts Council England announces that it is to shed 24% of its 622-stong staff to save £6.5 million a year. Official figures show a 40% increase in surgical measures to combat obesity. Visitor figures show good numbers for museums and galleries in Liverpool during the year as capital of culture and a rise of almost 10% for the British Museum, which welcomed almost six million visitors during 2008. International Leisure Development announces plans for a rival to Las Vegas in the countryside of Aragon in Spain. RBS is to end its sponsorship of the Williams grand prix team at the end of 2010. GB Cycling confirms Sky TV as the sponsor of its planned Tour de France team.
Thursday 26 February
A report by Sir Michael Marmot highlights scientific research that links increased incidence of cancer with growing levels of obesity; healthier lifestyles could prevent up to 40% of common cancers, the report suggests. China warns Christie’s not to auction two Qing dynasty bronzes that are part of Yves Saint Laurent’s estate. Herman Ouseley is threatening to quit the council of the Football Association over the “institutional exclusion” of black and ethnic minority individuals.
Friday 27 February
Applications for the opportunity to be part of Antony Gormley’s project for the fifth plinth in Trafalgar Square are now being invited. The Association of British Orchestras annual conference hears that alcoholism is rife within the musical fraternity. Sport England announces a themed funding round targeting participation in rural areas. Martin O’Neil says he will host a dinner for all the 295 Villa fans that made the away trip to see an under-strength team get beaten by CSKA Moscow.
Saturday 28 February
Michael Palin and Terry Jones agree to attend Aberystwyth’s first screening of The Life of Brian since the film was released thirty years ago. Protestors picket a circus in Nottinghamshire that has included three elephants in its show, the first circus animals in the UK for over ten years.
the world of leisure
February 2009
Monday 2 February:
With the £50 million for Diana and Actaeon raised in five months, the National Gallery and the National Gallery of Scotland are now trying to raise another £50 million for the accompanying piece, Diana and Callista.
Wednesday 4 February:
Sports minister Gerry Sutcliffe urges the Premier League to show it is “committed to sport all the way down” even though, by definition, intent and action, it isn’t.
Thursday 5 February:
Olympics minister, Tessa Jowell, says that the £196 million increase in facility construction costs have been offset by savings elsewhere, meaning that only an extra £3 million is needed
Sunday 8 February:
Meanwhile the FA laments the disappearance of the top women players to the USA; the home of football’s esteemed governing body has been planning central contracts but it seems that it’s a case of too little, too late in the face of the Women’s Professional Soccer league putting money on the table.
Wednesday 11 February:
Manchester City Council decides that the time has come to take down The B of the Bang rather than spend any more public money on stopping bits falling off it.
Thursday 12 February:
The Queen launches her latest website and financial authorities in the USA launch an investigation into the business affairs of Sir Allen Stanford, the noted Test-match loathing cricket fan.
Saturday 14 February:
George Benjamin’s new opera, Into the Little Hill, is performed in the bar of the Covent Garden opera house after a powercut hits the original performance area.
Monday 16 February:
Flavio Briatore says that the Renault Formula One team has a “solid future”. Start the clock.