The Leisure Review: World of Leisure

Friday 1 January
Speaking of Cardiff, David Tennant’s last appearance as Doctor Who is shown to a grieving public. Dance is the latest craze through which TV companies are to battle for audience ratings; BBC, ITV and Sky are all launching dance talent shows this weekend. Deer poaching in the UK has trebled in the last year according to game keepers. A tricky test for the already much derided Terrorism Act as artist Xenofon Kavvadias seeks legal opinion on including pages from a manual on terrorist techniques in one of his works. Meanwhile, freedom of speech campaigners in Ireland are to challenge the Republic’s recently introduced laws against blasphemy. In Russia the government has set a minimum price for vodka, doubling the cost of the cheapest brands, in an effort to tackle the nation’s traditional alcoholism.

Saturday 2 January
Controversy in the equestrian world over ‘blue-tongue’ training techniques that are said by some to be cruel to the horse. Elton John seems to be the preferred critical friend for many drug-addled stars. The Training and Development Agency for Schools reports a 35% increase last year in the number of people looking to change careers and move into teaching; apparently there are quite a few ex-bankers.

Sunday 3 January
A concerted protest is afoot over government plans to permit product placement within TV programmes and a report commissioned by the BBC shows that the corporation generates £7.6 billion for the UK economy. A study by the University of Sussex suggests that positive song lyrics can have a positive effect on listeners. Leeds beat Manchester Utd in the FA Cup, prompting Fergie to say that the five minutes of additional time at the end of ninety minutes was “an insult to the game and the players out there”, although no one is quite sure whether he wanted more or less time; given that the ageing knight is on a suspended touchline ban for criticising referees, the sporting world waits for the FA to do absolutely nothing about it.

Monday 4 January
James Cameron’s latest blockbuster, Avatar, breaks cinema box office records by bringing in $1 billion in the first three weekends. The US House of Representatives convenes a special hearing to investigate the validity of claims that school and college football (the gridiron version) is the source of brain injuries for players. Notts County FC is served with a winding up order by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. Team Sky announce that Ben Swift, an old boy of the British Cycling academy, is the final name in their line up and Sean Yates, one of Team Sky’s directeurs sportifs, says that Bradley ‘Wiggo’ Wiggins is a genuine Tour contender.

Tuesday 5 January
Ooh, it’s snowing south of Milton Keynes, making it officially bad weather; the coldest winter for 30 years is predicted. Davina McCall, the doyenne of celebrity and/or reality TV, says that she thinks telly is bad for children, particularly hers. London Zoo begins its annual stock take, expecting to find a population of some 14,500 inmates representing 750 different species. An Italian academic thinks that the Mona Lisa may well have had worryingly high levels of cholesterol. Commercial property experts Kings Sturge predicts rising rents in the City of London, suggesting that the threat by all the banks to quit the UK unless we give them all the rest of our money and help them carry it to their cars may all have proved to be idle bluster. It seems that a mountain of debt at Liverpool FC may well mean that their manager has no money for new players, particularly damaging given the tens of millions he has wasted on no-hopers over recent seasons. Portsmouth FC fail to pay their players again. Ball-tampering allegations against England in the Test match against South Africa. Flavio Briatore has his lifetime ban from Formula One overturned by a French court.

Wednesday 6 January
Moira Stuart, too old for the TV news according to some at the BBC, is back on the radio in the mornings with Chris Evans. Sam Mendes is rumoured to be in talks to direct the next Bond film and the Scottish government gives the go-ahead for an overhead power line through some of the most unspoilt areas of the Highlands. England’s cricketers are almost – but not quite – accused of persistent cheating by the Sarfies.

Thursday 7 January
Jonathan Ross will not be a BBC employee at the end of his current £6 million-a-year contract. The Commons health select committee notes that the drinks industry has more influence on government policy than health professionals. A record year for the sales of music downloads in the UK, with 152 million singles sold. Meanwhile, in Benson, Oxfordshire temperatures drop to minus 17.7C overnight, another record. France is looking at imposing a tax on Google’s online advertising sales to generate funds for the arts and on the Blighty side of La Manche the government is looking at tightening the tax rules for offshore bookmakers. Sports minister Gerry Sutcliffe hits the nail on the head: “It would be wrong of us to stand still where things are changing around us.” Insult to injury in Cape Town as England scrape a draw but the last-wicket triumph of Graham Onions does give headline-writers a boost.

Friday 8 January
BBC director general, Mark Thompson, is dismissive of the qualities and abilities of local authority chief executives. We learn that Peter Robinson, Northern Ireland’s first minister currently embroiled in a marital imbroglio, has a leisure centre named after him in East Belfast. Temperatures in Scotland drop to -17C, meaning perfect snow conditions and the best numbers for a decade at Scottish ski resorts. However, the economic weather is less clement and the Docklands boat show sees a drop in visitors. Channel 4 will be screening the 2012 Paralympics. Togo’s national football squad are attacked in Angola in advance of the African Cup of Nations, with fatal results.

Saturday 9 January
Plans for a three-dimensional animated version of Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp character are in the offing. Eric Cantona will make his stage acting debut later this month in Paris in one of his wife’s plays. Still no one in post as chief of London 2012’s entertainment and arts festival.

Sunday 10 January
The African Cup of Nations finally kicks off amid security concerns and warnings. Legally Blonde, The Musical seems set to become the latest West End theatre smash with the theatre having to create new stage door to cope with the post-show crowds. The Tate has raised £440,000 to purchase some paintings by William Blake that had been thought lost. Another anti-referee outburst from ‘Sir’ Alex Ferguson, who is on a suspended two-match ban since the last one; the FA is poised to flex its authority and, er, do nothing about it. They are skating on the Fens in Cambridgeshire for the first time since 1997.

Monday 11 January
Suggestions that the university sector will have to trim expenditure to the tune of £2.5 billion brings warnings of wrecking a “jewel in the crown” of the UK’s educational and cultural institutions. The Commons public accounts committee says that targets to increase the diversity of visitors to the nation’s heritage attractions were pointless. The Royal Opera House says that it will be making free tickets available to members of the armed forces. The Victoria and Albert Museum launches an architectural competition for the design of its first non-London outpost, a £47 million facility in Dundee. It seems that the Glazer family has borrowed £10 million from Manchester Utd in the last year on top of £10 million in “fees” since they arrived; surely these high-flying shopping mall and property magnates can’t be skint?

Tuesday 12 January
Plans for the staging of a Passion play in Trafalgar Square in London on Palm Sunday are well advanced but the riding of a donkey by a grown man (qv the Bible) is proving problematic; apparently there are laws against that sort of thing. Health secretary Andy Burnham backs plans to ban the use of sunbeds by people under the age of 18. Drama in Lenggriess in Germany when a jammed cable car serving the ski fields requires 43 people to be airlifted to safety.

Wednesday 13 January
The £4.2 billion that the government plans to spend on new prisons would be better spent of rehabilitation and prevention, says a House of Commons committee. A public appeal is launched to raise £3.3 million to buy the Staffordshire hoard of recently discovered Anglo-Saxon gold and permanently display them in Birmingham. Snow all over the place brings back the snowman and the sledge to modern British culture; it can’t last. US baseball star Mark McGwire confesses that actually yes he did use steroids during his record-breaking career after all; he’s not sorry about it though.

Thursday 14 January
The sales bubble of celebrity memoirs seems to have burst; sad news for Waterstone’s managing director, Gerry Johnson, who is eased out after poor sales figures but good news for everyone else who loves books. The Institution of Civil Engineers and the Royal Institute of British Architects say that rising sea levels could make Hull a new Venice, which is not, they stress, a thing to which we should look forward. Usually stone-faced PC Plod drops his “I’ll treat you like a criminal just in case” attitude to spend a light-hearted moment sledging down Oxford’s Boars Hill on his riot shield; laughs all round at the snowy face of community policing until the officers involved are disciplined by superiors. Soon-to-be-culture-secretary-or-so-he-thinks Jeremy Hunt says that a Conservative government would bring in a “golden age” of philanthropy for the arts in the US model. Part of Manchester Utd’s £500 million bond scheme, currently being hawked around the financial centres to save the club’s owners a few million a week in interest payments, is a pledge to raise ordinary match-day ticket prices by no more than the rate of inflation; but the number of ordinary match-day tickets are being reduced in favour of more ‘premium package’ tickets. Teddy Prendergrass, soul man supreme, dies at the age of 59.

Friday 15 January
The Houses of Parliament lodge an application with Westminster council for a licence to hold civil weddings. Gordon Ramsay’s Claridge’s operation loses its Michelin star, piling a little more pressure on the ‘under-pressure’ impressario of the expletive. A tomb in Rome goes for €938,000 at auction, about the price of a nice three-bedroom flat nearby. Chinese authorities close down China’s first gay pageant an hour before it is due to start and Everton’s Marouane Fellaini says that having some teeth out transformed him as a player. Britain’s Shelley Rudman wins world cup gold in the skeleton bob competition in St Moritz; her compatriot Kristan Bromley took silver in the men’s race.

Saturday 16 January
Mike Buss sets a world record for treadmill running in Swindon; 517.25 miles over seven days. The referral system for cricket’s umpiring decisions runs into controversy as Captain Cock-up makes an appearance in Johannesburg as England try to save the series. The Ramblers are starting a “use it or lose it” campaign to mark 75 years of the association’s work on protecting and expanding rights of way across the UK.

Sunday 17 January
Ethical tourism it ain’t: five days after the devastating earthquake in Haiti brings a death toll expected to be more than 150,000 people a cruise liner docks to deposit tourists on the private Labadee beach, which is just 60 miles from Port-au-Prince. Ofcom is thought to be planning a challenge to BSkyB’s dominance of the TV sports marketplace. Prince William arrives in New Zealand for some royal reason or other and, during a bit of
a rugby-based chuck about with some local kids, takes one in the nads on behalf of Her Majesty. England cricket captain Andrew Stauss admits that his team were “not good enough” to beat South Africa over the course of the series. First race for Team Sky, a criterium in Adelaide in advance of the start of the Tour Down Under, brings a first win.

Monday 18 January
Neuroscientists at Cambridge University think that aerobic exercise triggers new cell growth in the brain, promoting development of the dentate gyrus in the hippocampus. A school in Derby has been using Bach, Mozart and Verdi to cut bad behaviour by some 50%; the only cultural downside is that the effect has been achieved by playing classical music at Friday afternoon detentions, making the ‘Bach to Basics’ sessions (see what they’ve done there?) even more horrifying for your average spotty student. Formula One technology honchos MacLaren are apparently helping Team GB’s rowers and cyclists in their quest for London 2012 medal-wear. Northern Rock, the Geordie nation’s own bank now nationalised for the good of us all, is to sponsor Newcastle Utd in a deal that could cost them (the bank rather than the Toon) £10 million. It seems that the small print of the Manchester Utd bond means that the Glazers would be able to take £130 million out of the club next year. FIFA finally admits that it is powerless to punish Thierry Henri’s world cup qualifying handball; if only they had a catch-all proviso such as, say, off the top of our heads, ‘bringing the game into disrepute’. Folk music legend Kate McGarrigle dies aged 63.

Tuesday 19 January
New licensing requirements, including a ban on drinking games and general bingeing behaviour, are announced by ministers, none of whom will ever have got completely shedded at college and will therefore be well-qualified to claim the moral and highly abstemious high ground. A study from the USA suggests that boys are better able to express themselves through art in a single-sex school. Cinema admissions in the UK hit 173.5 million last year and inward investment in the British film industry was at record levels, although the amount spend on British co-productions fell to a record low of £35 million. Prison authorities have decided that it will be too expensive to pay for music licences for British nicks so from next week it will be no music in communal areas. In a similar licence-based argument, Spanish barbers are rebelling against a monthly fee for playing music; bring your own, they are suggesting, rather impractically. David Sullivan and David Gold, formerly of Birmingham City FC and now the new owners of West Ham Utd FC, reveal that their new club is in a “mess”, a situation they think will be partially rectified by taking up residency at London’s Olympic stadium after the Games. Bill ‘Voice of Rugby’ McLaren dies at the age of 86.

Wednesday 20 January
The British Medical Association condemns the drinks industry for targeting young people with advertising. Amy Winehouse admits assaulting a theatre manager but escapes a custodial sentence. The New York Times is to follow the Murdoch papers by charging for online content; watch this space (it’s free).

Thursday 21 January
Film director Danny Boyle will be making his stage directorial debut at the National Theatre next winter. FIFA and world cup organisers in South Africa are reported to be a bit worried about the rate of ticket sales for this summer’s festival of football; it’s all a bit slow, apparently. A research team at Newcastle University suggests that an alarming number of children are deficient in vitamin D owing to the fact that they don’t get enough sun. The Australian Aboriginal community is not happy about a pair of Russian skaters’ routine for the ice dance competition, which includes body paint and some rather dubious dark-toned body stockings. Record companies warn of an impending “cultural desert” as a result of a 30% drop in music sales over the last five years; piracy is to blame for the drop, they say.

Friday 22 January
Staff at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London have been told that the whole show could be wound up by May; the current deficit stands at £600,000 and could rise to twice that. Up the road in Earls Court it seems that the exhibition centre of the same name could be demolished to make way for residential development if the new owners have their way, although they will wait until after the 2012 volleyball competition. Michael Owen, the perennial footballing wunderkind, clears up a long-standing conundrum by admitting that “England is bigger than Michael Owen.”

Saturday 23 January
Tesco announces that it is to become a producer of films, focusing on movies based on bestselling novels. The British Aviemore sled dog rally takes place in Scotland, running on snow for the first time in 15 years. A body representing local authorities in London says that greater efficiency in the delivery of public services could save up to 15% of public spending.

Sunday 24 January
English Heritage says that we should be making better use of our old, often Victorian, school buildings, including using them as, er, schools. Urbis, the museum of contemporary culture in Manchester, is to close, reopening as the new home of the football museum that currently resides at Preston. Twenty-odd years ago the streets of Beijing were filled with bicycles and cars were a rarity; now the Chinese authorities have set a five-year target of increasing cycling by 25%. The Tigers and the Ospreys seem to be setting out on rugby union as a 16-a-side game, according accusations and counter-accusations over a recent Heineken Cup game. A one-two in the final stage of the Tour Down Under marks an impressive start for British Cycling’s road team; a slight mix up over which of the Team Sky riders should have taken the win but otherwise all is well in the world of Brailsford.

Monday 25 January
The Discovery Heritage Group based in New Zealand admits that some of his so-called Maori dancers who used to perform for visiting cruise ships were not in fact Maori, more like Europeans and Israelis; DHG director Terina Puriri, who herself has Maori heritage, explained: “Some of our Maori are too slack to promote themselves.” Police in Cyprus have broken a ring that was smuggling ancient artefacts for sale on the international market; dozens of pieces have been recovered by the authorities. Gordon Brown, who as chancellor gave us an end to ‘boom and bust’ economics, says as prime minister that the debts being carried by British football clubs are too high.

Tuesday 26 January
A retrospective of the work of Chris Ofili opens at Tate Britain, with Ofili’s new style drawing marked responses. The San Carlo, Naples’ newly refurbished opera house, reopens after a two-year restoration; the beleaguered city hopes that this new cultural focal point will mark a turning point in the city’s fortunes. The National Equality Panel, set up by the minister for women and equality (No? It’s Harriet Harman), publishes its report, An Anatomy of Economic Inequality in the UK, which shows that the richest 10% of British society are now 100 times better off than the poorest. Poet Christopher Reid wins the Costa book prize. The British Library announces that it will display the Klencke atlas, a gift to Charles II which stands the best part of six feet tall and takes six people to lift, as part of its summer exhibition of maps. The Home Office reckons that 3,200 England football supporters will be banned from travelling to the world cup in South Africa. Fergie alert: the florid footballing knight has now banned Sky TV from all things Man Utd for having had the temerity to show one of his players (drugs cheat Rio Ferdinand) behaving on the pitch during a game in the Premier League, a game that Sky pays literally billions of pounds to televise, in a manner that resulted in a charge of violent conduct. Meanwhile, elsewhere on the slowly dying sphere that is Planet Football, Crystal Palace become the latest club to go into administration; cue a 10-point deduction and a fire sale of players.

Wednesday 27 January
An excellent year for West End theatres in 2008: revenues at a record levels and the audience total past 14 million for the first time. In a new take on the concept of reimbursement for representing one’s country it seems that Chinese footballers have recently been in the habit of paying the Chinese Football Association to let them play for the team, which could explain why the once-impressive national team is now ranked 97 in the world. FIFA says that the English “football family” (a dysfunctional unit that will presumably be appearing on the Jeremy Kyle show any day now) should stop having a pop at the South African staging of the world cup.

Thursday 28 January
Good reports and positive margins for a restaurant in Bristol run by anarchists that invites diners to pay what they think their meal was worth. Andy Murray is in to the final of the Australian Open, his second appearance in the final of a major tournament. A performance at Frankfurt’s Schauspielhaus theatre goes predictably awry after four of Germany’s top actors experiment with the use of real vodka in a play, Moscow to the End of the Line, about a drinking spree. Sir Matthew Pinsent, the noted rowlock-roller of old Henley town, has been welcomed onto the board of JJB Sports, the retailer that under Stock Exchange regulations has the adjective ‘ailing’ attached to its every mention; Sir Matt will pick up £40,000 a year to divine the latest sporting trends. JD Salinger, the celebrated novelist who clung to his privacy with a vice-like grip, dies at the age of 91.

Friday 29 January
A contestant on Britain’s Got Talent (the ‘For Self-Delusion’ in the title is implied) is to report the Simon Cowell-fronted show to Ofcom on the grounds that they did not take her, and her disability (she has cervical spine neuritis apparently) seriously. John Terry’s application for a ‘superinjunction’ to prevent the reporting of his ‘private life’ is nixed in the high court by Mr Justice Tugendhat. The South African competition commission is investigating allegations of price-fixing by airlines selling tickets to visitors travelling for the world cup.

Saturday 30 January
The Folkwang museum in Essen, Germany reopens after a redesign and the return of its most important works, a collection that was broken up by the Nazis on the grounds that works by such artists as Gauguin, Picasso and Matisse were ‘degenerate’. The latest bestseller on Amazon is a book titled Fifty Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do). A screenplay written by French film legend Jacques Tati has been animated and will be screened next month at the Berlin Film Festival.

Sunday 31 January
Positive news from the Terry affair: the government is to revisit the libel legislation that gives rise to the so-called superinjunction. Meanwhile sports minister Gerry Sutcliffe says that the England captaincy has “wider responsibilities” than just turning out on the field. Melvyn Bragg (some say ‘Lord Bragg’) is to present his personal archive collected during 50 years as a novelist, author and historian to Leeds University. A row over the costs of electronic books (some say ‘ebooks’) sees books published by Macmillan, including Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, removed from Amazon’s website in the US. Having buggered up the Royal Mail, Adam Crozier, former Mars Bar salesman and erstwhile brain cell at the helm of the Football Association, is to move to ‘sort out’ ITV; sell, sell, sell. Andy Murray cannot resist a little tear after having his game dismantled by Roger Federer in the final of the Australian Open; 74 years and still counting, says Roger Draper, with his trademark charming grin. David Gill, Manchester Utd’s chief exec, says that plans by fans to demonstrate against the Glazers’ ownership of the club are “ridiculous”. England cricket’s bowling coach, Ottis Gibson, is to take the head coach job at the West Indies.