The Leisure Review: World of Leisure

Thursday 1 October
New regulations regarding minimum wages for restaurant staff mean a new challenge for restaurateurs to make ends meet and for waiters to prise a tip from their customers. Thirty of the 93 Lewis chessmen, the games set thought to be some 800 years old, are to be reunited for the first time in over a century to tour Scotland. Donald Trump is granted more time to buy property essential to his vision of a coastal golf resort in Scotland. Alan Shearer has been appointed deputy lieutenant of Northumberland, the Queen’s official representative to the Geordie nation. Gustavo Dudamel, a product of Venezuela’s El Sistema approach to musical education, takes up his post as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the age of 28. Concerns over Leeds City Council’s plans to buy Leeds Utd’s training ground as it seems no one really knows who owns the club, a result of the labyrinthine trail of off-shore companies and trusts. Tiger Woods is apparently the world’s first sporting billionaire.

Friday 2 October
The International Olympic Committee holds court in Copenhagen to decide the hosts of the 2016 Games; a few hours later and it’s Rio, making it two out of two for communications expert Mike Lee.
Sunday 3 October. In 2010 the Royal Academy is to host a exhibition of the art treasures of the collection of the princes of Liechtenstein, one of the most spectacular private art collections in the world. The Tories’ culture spokesman, Jeremy Hunt, says that the BBC must respond to recent challenges by “cutting its cloth”. Steven Spielberg and George Lucas will be lending parts of their own art collections to an exhibition of Norman Rockwell’s work in Washington (DC, rather than CD). Kevin Keegan was constructively dismissed, says an arbitration panel, exposing in the process that Newcastle FC was in the habit of signing players the manager did not want as a ‘favour’ to foreign agents.

Saturday 3 October
Kate Humble is appointed president of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. The Tornado, the first steam locomotive to be build in the UK in 50 years, has its first run over the Ribblehead viaduct. The Tories say that they will open the government’s historic property portfolio to the public. The Centre for Science in the Public Interest, a US-based thinktank, says that the American government should consider a 7 cent tax on every can of soda, raising $10 billion to fight obesity. Svennis is the latest expert (sic) to reckon that England can win the world cup next year. He also says that he “couldn’t care less” where the money for Notts County is coming from “as long as it’s legal”; but if you don’t know where it’s coming from how do you know it’s legal, Svennis?

Sunday 4 October
Plans are unveiled to introduce the first new drinking fountains in London for decades, part of the campaign to minimise the use of plastic water bottles. Concerns at the British Library and the National Library of Scotland over the loss of some literary and scientific material published online owing to the quirks of legislation. Disgusted by earning so much money that she now has to pay a bit more tax than poor people, Tracey Emin says she is “very seriously considering” moving to France.

Monday 5 October
A new book telling tales of Pooh and his friends in the Hundred Acre Wood is published by AA Milne’s estate. Glastonbury 2010 has sold out in under 24 hours. Watton town council in Norfolk is to try offering free taxi rides home after chucking out time in an effort to cut antisocial behaviour on Friday and Saturday nights. Turner Prize entries are unveiled at Tate Britain. Brigitte, a German fashion magazine, says it will no longer use pictures of professional models. “For years we’ve had to use Photoshop to fatten the girls up,” says editor in chief, Andreas Lebert. Claims from Sean Long, a former Great Britain rugby league scrum-half, that the game is rife with illegal betting. The FA says it will ask Alex Ferguson to explain his outburst about referee Alan Wiley.

Tuesday 6 October
Hilary Mantel, the third-best writer in Glossop, wins the Man Booker prize for her novel, Wolf Hall. Afghanistan’s National Museum, which once held one of the world’s greatest collections of ancient artefacts, reopens. Spain is to publish a list of all the statues and accompanying paraphernalia commemorating General Franco with a view to getting rid of them all by the end of the year. The head of the AFLD, the French anti-doping agency, says that this year’s Tour riders were using two new drugs not yet on the medical market.

Wednesday 7 October
President Obama’s taste in art is critiqued after the list of works chosen for the White House is published. The Egyptian government announces that it is cutting links with the Louvre in Paris because the latter had refused to return artefacts that are alleged to have been looted from Egypt. Protests emerge in Mexico over the filming of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel, Memories of My Melancholy Whores. Brian Mawhinney, chair of the Football League, says that there should be greater clarity over club ownership; something should be done, he says, although he stops short of saying he is the one who is going to do it. Still on Planet Football, Martin Edwards, who made tens of millions by selling his Manchester Utd shares and tried to sell the club to BSkyB, says that the Glazers, who now own the club, have had a malign influence on Old Trafford. Meanwhile, Jack Warner, the FIFA vice-president who made millions from flogging tickets for the FIFA world cup, says England’s campaign to host a future world cup is heading for failure.

Thursday 8 October
Herta Müller, the Romanian-born German author, wins the Nobel prize for literature, the twelfth woman so to do in the 108 years of the prize. Culture secretary Ben Bradshaw has vetoed Boris Johnson’s nominee for the post of the Arts Council’s London region; Veronica Wadley was editor of the Evening Standard, a newspaper that shamelessly campaigned for Boris during his mayoral campaign. Upset in Barcelona as people in the Barceloneta, a traditionally working class region of the city, complain about the new Sail Hotel that has gone up at the entrance to the harbour, dominating the area with its 100m-tall mass. The Competition Commission nix the merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation. Lord Triesman, chairman of England’s world cup 2018 bid, says England’s record of combating racism in football compares favourably with that of Spain. Fabio Cannavaro of Juventus has failed a drug test; cortisone used to “treat a bee sting” is declared to be the guilty party. The French government has banned Betfair from operating in its territories.

Friday 9 October
A survey of teenaged boys in the UK suggests that they are overwhelmingly happy and ambitious under their hoodies. An office block that incorporates an arts venue is named as the winner of the top award in the British Council of Offices best building competition. Unrest in the international museums fraternity as the British Museum won’t be lending the Cyrus cylinder to Iran. Leeds City Council says that Leeds Utd should just say who owns the club. Golf and rugby sevens are added to the list of Olympic sports from 2016; professional golfer Darren Clarke showed some clarity by saying of his own game, “I can see why they are doing it – to grow the sport round the world – but I don’t think it should be in it.”

Saturday 10 October
London’s Olympic Park will be using state-of-the-art biometric security measures for all the staff on site from now on. The Churches Child Protection Advisory Service comes out in favour of the vetting and barring system. Alex Ferguson attempts an apology over his insulting comments regarding the fitness of referee Alan Whiley but fails. It seems Donington Park has missed the deadline to have everything ready to host the British grand prix next year; here comes Silverstone.

Sunday 11 October
The Landmark Trust advertises for a couple to look after the properties on Lundy Island, which sits in the Bristol Channel with 25 people on it. In Barcelona they are getting ready for a vote on whether to ban bullfighting. Sky is going to launch a digital music service to challenge iTunes. A ‘new’ episode of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy written by Eoin Colfer to continue Douglas Adams’s series is published. The Victorian Society includes Mosley Road Baths in Birmingham among its list of most threatened buildings. One third of council tax revenue is spend on gathering and disposing of household rubbish, according to the Guardian’s research, and Andy Williams is to perform at Glastonbury next year, according to Michael Eavis. Kinder Scout is named as a national nature reserve and the Royal Bank of Scotland is to put some of its 2,200 items of British art on display so that the people who now own it (us) can finally see them. Chile rules that restrictions on visiting Easter Island are unconstitutional, prompting fears for the island’s delicate ecosystem.

Monday 12 October
London’s Evening Standard becomes a free newspaper as part of the ongoing circulation battle in the newspaper industry. While MPs get their letters from Sir Thomas Legg outlining what they might have to pay back, the government is to sell off the Tote as part of a revenue-generating exercise. Children’s secretary, Ed Balls, says that friends who look after each other’s children will not require Criminal Records Bureau checks. Frank Lampard says the ‘golden generation’ tag applied to the England squad was, in hindsight, a bit of a burden.

Tuesday 13 October
Damien Hirst opens an exhibition of his paintings at the Wallace Collection and admits that he was “always very dissatisfied with my paintings”. French Vogue cannot understand why pictures of a white model blacked up should bring an outcry. Sea the Stars, the recently retired racehorse, will be charging some €90,000 for his services as a stud, which, someone with too much time on their hands has calculated, means he will be earning more than Cristiano Ronaldo. British cyclist Jonny Bellis, who was injured in a motorcycle accident in September, is still in hospital in Florence but has been taken out of his medically induced coma. Boris Johnson and LOCOG have come to an agreement over London 2012 venues which, Johnson says, will save £20 million on the final costs of the Games. The world gymnastics championships open at the O2 Arena in London. Al Martino, crooner extraordinaire, dies at the age of 82.

Wednesday 14 October
Lloyds Banking Group is apparently to ask the government for another £5 billion on top of the £17 billion already put in. Antony Gormley’s fourth plinth project comes to an end after 100 days. Frieze, Europe’s largest contemporary art fair, opens in London and Hans Ulrich Obrist, the curator of the Serpentine Gallery in London, is named as the most powerful person in the art world by Art Review magazine. Four horses die at a meeting in Wetherby, prompting the interest of the RSPCA. The Winspear Opera House in Dallas, designed by Foster + Partners to break down barriers of elitism within opera, has its first night. Revenue from music rights payments rose 11.5% in the UK last year, bringing artists and record companies a little light relief that need not be put down as ‘flowers’ in the accounts. Leinster flanker Shane Dennings is given a twelve-week ban for gouging, or, as the International Rugby Board puts it, “contact with an opponent’s eye”. Thin men in sheds all over Europe get a surge of excitement with the announcement of the route for the 2010 Tour de France; it’s starting in Rotterdam, going across the cobbles of Belgium and climbing the Tourmalet twice!

Thursday 15 October
A study led by Cambridge University suggests that formal school education starts too early in the UK. The Spanish regional government of Catalonia bans happy hour promotions in an effort to combat binge drinking. Plans to require athletes at the London Olympics to agree to having their rooms searched without notice are being considered by the UK government and LOCOG; “We don’t want to criminalise athletes,” says the sports minister, Gerry Sutcliffe, before adding the inevitable “but”. Walter Smith, the manager of Glasgow Rangers, says that Scottish football will die if his club and rivals Celtic do not join a mooted weekly Atlantic league involving teams from Holland, Sweden, Denmark and Belgium. Daniel Keating becomes Britain’s first all-around gymnastics world silver medallist at the O2.

Friday 16 October
Amid all talk of likely government spending cuts, the prime minister announces £45 million to fund a new British film centre on the Southbank in London; there is also an additional £60 million for the DCMS to enable it to deliver on its funding commitments to the Tate Modern extension, the British Museum extension, the British Library and Stonehenge. The short list for the Stirling Prize, British architecture’s most prestigious award, includes a visual arts centre in Shoreditch, an arts venue within an office complex in King’s Cross, both in London. Leeds City Council pulls out of negotiations to buy Leeds United’s training ground, football’s very own Mr Kettle, Alex Ferguson, warns of financial oblivion in football if the enormous level of spending by professional clubs continues and Carlo Ancelotti says that new sports science techniques will enable John Terry to play until he is forty, although he doesn’t actually say for which club. In the world of Pringle jumpers St Andrew’s announces that it is to lengthen the Road Hole on the Old Course. Bradley Wiggins is critical of his sport’s governing body’s plans to even up the number of men’s and women’s events in the Olympic programme by dropping the men’s 4,000m pursuit.

Saturday 17 October
A Liverpool beach ball scores Sunderland’s goal, proving that top-class referees, managers and players really don’t know the rules of the game they are being paid a fortune to take part in. Outcry over plans by the Duchy of Cornwall to develop a greenfield site in Somerset. Netball unveils plans to secure a place as an Olympic sport in 2020 by showcasing ‘fastnet’, a new version of a game designed to be something other than the sport on which it is based; some ask why they don’t just let players kick the ball towards a square net and have done with it.

Sunday 18 October
A new plan, the latest in a long line of plans since the 1980s when Margaret Thatcher first unveiled a private developer’s vision to protect one of the UK’s greatest architectural landmarks, is submitted to Wandsworth council. Jessica Watson, a 16-year-old Australian, leaves Sydney harbour on a quest to become the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe. The output of films from Hollywood is likely to be a third less than last year in response to tough times in Tinseltown. Jenson Button secures the formula one world championship and Beth Tweddle overcomes disappointment earlier in the week to become the world floor gymnastics champion.

Monday 19 October
Tate is to work with Aardman to provide opportunities for children to make their own animations. Ash, a popular music combo, announce plans to do an A-to-Z tour of the UK; they will start in Aldershot and finish in Zennor in Cornwall; only Exeter for X looks like a bit of a fudge. The music industry is apparently drawing up proposals to enable record companies to make sure ‘self-harming’ artists get help. The FA gets round to charging Alex Ferguson with improper conduct following his condemnation of referee Alan Wiley. Officials in Rio de Janeiro say that security will not be an issue at the 2016 Olympics. Broadcaster, writer and campaigner Ludovic Kennedy dies at the age of 89.

Tuesday 20 October
The village of Tiwanaku in Bolivia may have cause to regret the decision to replaster its pre-Inca pyramid to make it look more impressive; its United Nation’s world heritage site designation is now at risk. LOCOG announces Thomas Cook as the official travel supplier to the London 2012 Olympics. Meanwhile, the British Olympic Association says that the original plan to have a GB team of up to 600 athletes in London is under review and the news from the IOC is that proposals to deliver gender equity in the Olympic cycling programme is likely to be approved in December. The Football League approves the takeover of Notts County, suggesting that they are the only people who actually think they know who owns the club.

Wednesday 21 October
Research from the Society of London Theatres suggests that ‘search for a star’ TV shows based on popular musicals have had a significant affect on audience numbers; this year London theatres have had their best audiences for 25 years. Alan Davey, chief executive of the Arts Council, tells a Conservative Party arts conference that arts funding is the key to civilised government. Sport England figures show that only three sports have increased their participation in the past year; Seb Coe says that the participation legacy of the London Olympics is a story that needs to be told “in a coherent way”.

Thursday 22 October
The government is to amend the Licensing Act to remove the requirement of a music licence for small venues. The Arts Council announces the twelve commissions that will be part of Artists Taking the Lead, one aspect of the Cultural Olympiad. Nick Griffin appears on Question Time and disappoints no one. The National Portrait Gallery will be staging an exhibition of the photography of Irving Penn and revolutionary surgical techniques may yet restore Julie Andrews’s voice. The Office of Fair Trading says that there is nothing wrong with the rules under which large pub companies tie their landlords to beer supplies, a system that many organisations had been campaigning against in an effort to prevent continuing pub closures. Those serving as ambassadors for the England 2018 world cup bid now include Michael Ballack, Michael Essien and Robinho.

Friday 23 October
The New York subway system is to work with staff from Transport for London to see how the Big Apple’s transport system, which carries 5.2 million passengers every day (London Underground has 3.4 million), can be improved. The BPI, the music industry body, says it is astonished that a record-breaking total of 117 million singles have been sold this year, although it remains silent on whether home taping did actually kill music. Unidentified Russian buyers snap up the archive of Giorgio Vasari, said to be one of Italy’s most important sets of Renaissance documents. Fabio Capello says that he has learned a lot from other sports such as volleyball, baseball, rugby union and ice hockey, sending shockwaves through the world of football coaching.

Saturday 24 October
The National Academy of Writing launches an award to promote good writing. An exhibition of Soviet socialist realism in Berlin could mark the start of a reassessment of a once-derided school of art. Morrissey collapses on stage at the Oasis Leisure Centre in Swindon but is later declared to be as well as someone with permanent ennui can be. Lord Owen says that plans to spend £20 billion on replacing Trident are no longer credible.

Sunday 25 October
Former Mars Bar salesman and erstwhile supremo of the FA, Adam Crozier, continues to display his dazzling management skills at the helm of the Royal Mail; strikes seem set to continue. Culture secretary, Ben Bradshaw, says that Prince Charles should (and we paraphrase here) shut up about architecture. Sidneysiders take to their famous bridge to find that it has been turfed as part of the inaugural Breakfast on the Bridge initiative. A joint venture between Curzon and HMV could see cinema screens opening above record shops all over the country. Myron Rolle, a football superstar in the US, arrives in Oxford to take up his Rhodes scholarship, while the New England Patriots and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers play at Wembley, an occasion that prompts the British American Football League to lay claim to “arguably the fastest-growing sport in Great Britain” status.

Monday 26 October
Sometime novelist, regular restaurant critic and full-time controversialist AA Gill says he shot a baboon on safari “to get a sense of what it might be like to kill someone”. Legal wrangling still continues in the US over who owns the artefacts and relics from the wreck of the Titanic. Alex Ferguson upsets referees again by ranting on about decisions that did not go his team’s way; he doesn’t know the laws of the game, say the referees’ representatives. Elsewhere on Planet Football, Spurs put in planning permission for a new ground.

Tuesday 27 October
The trend for early retirees to sell the house, buy a boat and sail the world while they can still remember where they left the spinnaker is highlighted by the kidnapping of Paul and Rachel Chandler off the coast of Somalia. A film of the late Michael Jackson’s rehearsals for his ill-fated comeback concerts premiers around the world, with a 4am start for fans in London. A list of targets for an IRA bombing campaign in 1975 included Madame Tussauds, the National Gallery, the British Museum, the Tate Gallery, the Imperial War Museum, the National Maritime Museum and the Farnham Royal Nurseries.

Wednesday 28 October
After five centuries of searching it seems that historians and archaeologists have found the site of the Battle of Bosworth, the set-to in which Richard III and the House of York met their end in 1485. Professor David Nutt, chairman of the government’s advisory committee on the misuse of drugs says that alcohol is more harmful than ecstasy. The press gathers in Oxford to drool over the new galleries of the Ashmolean. An exhibition of manuscripts and original artwork opens in Paris to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the creation of Asterix. Freddy Shepherd, who took tens of millions of pounds out of Newcastle United in salaries, bonuses and shares, says that someone else making money out of the club is heresy. Andre Agassi has a book to sell and the inclusion of a confession that he once took meth amphetamine will help it along; that he failed a dope test and escaped a ban by writing to the tennis authorities and saying it had all been a mistake should raise serious questions within the Association of Tennis Professionals, but won’t. Beloved cricket umpire David Shepherd dies at the age of 68.

Thursday 29 October
Ooh! One thousand days to go until London 2012 opens for business. Wigan Athletic’s Marlon King maintains the Premier League’s reputation for probity by getting sent down for 18 months after being found guilty of assaulting a woman in a London bar; he had only gone out to celebrate his wife’s third pregnancy and the woman whom he ‘met’ ended up with a broken nose. Bidding for an inclusion in Private Eye’s ‘Scene You Seldom See’, Wigan chairman, Dave Whelan, says that King is “absolutely sacked”. Radio 4 reaches (a technical term meaning the number of people who turn on for five minutes a week) 10.22 million people, behind the 13.62 million of Radio 2 and the 11.11 million of Radio 1. Government plans to cut support for universities' historic buildings could cost Oxford, Cambridge and King’s College London £40 million a year. Hull City manager, Phil Brown, ups the mathematical, and indeed philosophical stakes, by saying his players are “one million percent” behind him. The Rugby Football Union announces profits of £9 million on a turnover of £119 million. A grand prix at Donington Park? Ridiculous, says Bernie Ecclestone. Norman Painting, the actor who played Phil Archer in The Archers for 60 years, dies at the age of 85.

Friday 30 October
Remember David Nutt and his comments about alcohol being more dangerous than many drugs? The government have sacked him for the temerity of an adviser giving advice. Members of the UK Youth Parliament are the first non-MPs to be allowed to debate in the chamber of the House of Commons. The Duchess of Northumberland plans to give Alnwick castle a bit of a Disney makeover to put it into the top ranks of tourist attractions. A Dutch court has prevented 14-year-old Laura Dekker from attempting to sail single-handed around the globe. Some 280 works of art from the Lehman banking house collection will go under the hammer in Philadelphia this weekend.

Saturday 31 October
Stephen Fry says that he is going to give up using Twitter after someone was rude about him via this online service; cue outburst of angst from Twits around the globe. Environmentalists are not happy about plans to shift a load of sand from a sandbank to the beaches of Cancun. The Professional Footballers’ Association says that it will stand by the newly incarcerated Marlon King. “We’ll be there for him,” says Gordon Taylor. Meanwhile, jockey Paul Carberry is stood down from riding after failing a breath test before a race.