POL00338401
POL00338401
They are very, very different.
politically, physically, emotionally, ideologically.
SARAH JESSICA PARKER on her two
year-old twins, Jonathan Ross Show
My style icon today is Paul Newman circa 1966.
But I have a feeling tomorrow it'll be Picasso
of the Breton stripe from the Robert Doisneau.
photo (1952). Thursday David Bowie as Ziggy
Stardust; and casual Friday Ned Rorem during the
Paris years. None of those men were followers of
fashion; rather, they appreciated style. They were
all vain to some degree, and genius to a greater
degree. I's a model to which I aspire
JOSHUA DAVID STEIN,
ae we
Cooking is not a a response to the basic
human need of feeding ourselves, and is
also more than the search for happiness.
Cooking is a powerful, transformative tool
that, through the joint effort of co-producers
whether we be chefs, producers or eaters
can change the way the world nourishes
itself. We dream of a future in which the
chefis socially engaged, conscious of and
responsible for his or her contribution to a
just and sustainable society.
Statement issued by a ‘G9 summit meeting’
of the world’s chefs, meeting in Lima, Peru,
quoted in the Guardian
Another motif is the human body, symbolised
in patterns on windows, cupboards and
doors. Ancient architects apparently designed
temples and cathedrals according to human
proportions. Jencks has gone one better and
omorphised the doors, giving them
both a left handle and a right handle. ‘Normal
doors are deprived of one of their hands,’ he
says. ‘A door wants to have both’
‘At home with CHARLES JENCKS, Sunday
Times
Breakfast is a finely tuned, precision operation in
our household...it tends to be a spare, brisk affair.
Last weekend in St Moritz breakfast involved
cappuccinos served in cosy yellow Dibbern mugs
and Gipfeli (German Switzerland’ less buttery and
more fluffy answer fo the croissant) with apricot jam
served on maple plates from the Tokyo retailer Play
Mountain. When we're in Sweden it's cappuccinos
in white littala mugs and egg, chive and Kallas
kaviar open-face sandwiches on toasted Finnish rye
bread served on small rectangular teak plates. With
a bit of luck all of this is consumed on the jetty in
the morning sun followed by a dip in the Baltic.
(On Wednesday the breakfast routine in
London started with coffees served in mugs from
One Kiln ceramics in Kagoshima, but there was
a problem in the kitchen. The Poilane bread that
had been purchased the evening before at our
local branch of Waitrose was still mushy in the
middle...[continues]
TYLER BRULE, ‘Life in the fast lane’,
FT Weekend
CONTRIBUTORS: Julie Tosh, Eugen Beer,
Richard Lumb, Phil Carter, John Laird.
£10 paid for all entries
POST OFFICE AUTOMATION
Computer
says no
programmes hit the next stage in the
lifecycle of botched computer projects —
malfunction — alarming repercussions are
being felt in Britain’s post offices.
Over the last few years the Horizon system
that 11,500 sub-postmasters are forced to use has
thrown up a rash of apparent financial “shortfalls”,
prompting dozens of prosecutions and financial
ruin for businessmen and women with previously
spotless records. Fifty-five of them last week
launched a “class action” against the Post Office,
arguing their troubles owe more to computer error
than dishonesty.
In a standard week a sub-post office
performs thousands of transactions —
many such as pension payments
and lottery and foreign currency
purchases, in cash. When the
computer says the till is short, the
sub-postmaster (or mistress) has
to cough up the difference; and
the computer is always right
apparently, If the sub-postmaster or
mistress can’t pay up, the Post Office’s
fraud investigators swiftly descend.
Typical is the case of Jo Hamilton from South
Warborough in Hampshire, who one week was
£2,000 down. After the helpdesk told her to press
a few buttons the total doubled, and the Post
Office took £4,000 off her. When the problem
kept repeating, her mistake was to claim that
everything was fine so she could at least keep
trading in the hope the errors would correct
themselves and she’d get her £4,000 back. Then
the total hit £36,000, the auditors swooped and
she was convicted for false accounting (without
ever being accused of taking any money) and
forced to pay the £36,000 back with the help of
supportive villagers.
‘Others have been jailed for theft simply on
evidence from a computer system that seems to
be misfiring, with no indication of what they are
supposed to have done with the cash. One,
‘Seema Misra, was pregnant when she was found
guilty of stealing £75,000 even though no trace
of the money could be found and the judge at
Guildford crown court, according to supporters
present, appeared to instruct the jury that the
evidence was very limited. She was sentenced to
18 months.
Since her case, others have pleaded guilty
simply for more lenient sentences. Many more
YUNUS BAKHSH
Stalling for Tyne
JHE saga of Yunus Bakhsh, the psychiatric
nurse with a 23-year unblemished record
who was unlawfully suspended and sacked
five years ago because of trade union activity,
continues.
Despite condemnation in the Commons, the
Northumbria, Tyne and Wear NHS trust is still
refusing to abide by an employment tribunal’s
order to reinstate him — so the impoverished nurse
now has to go back to the courts.
‘Ata directions hearing last week, Yunus’s
lawyers said they were investigating under what
powers an NHS trust had the right to flout court,
orders. MP John McDonnell has also written to the
trust, asking what right a public body has to refuse
to accept the order of a court and to run up further
costs to taxpayers in the process, He has also
have coughed up thousands of pounds from their
‘own pockets in desperate attempts to retain their
livelihoods. The Justice for Sub-postmasters
Alliance reckons the total affected could run into
the thousands,
‘The Post Office remains the only body in the
UK to run its own prosecutions and campaigners
think that if it had to use the Crown Prosecution
Service many cases would not have made it to
court. The last organisation with such powers,
Customs and Excise, was stripped of them
almost a decade ago when it was found to have
over-stepped the mark in several high-profile
cases.
Mrs Hamilton’s MP, James Arbuthnot,
expresses a widely-held view when he says: “I
find it very difficult to believe that all these sub-
postmasters and sub-postmistresses are suddenly
found to be dishonest, if the alternative is that it
may be a public sector computer system which
has gone wrong. We've heard of that before.” But
postal services minister Ed Davey is washing hi
hands of the problem, simply re-directing MPs
questions to the Post Office itself.
There is no shortage of visible problems with
Horizon, One sub-postmaster explained to the Eye
how when selling stamps, for example, his
terminal often either registered no stamp
sale or not the class of stamp keyed
in, And in July the entire Post
Office banking system was shut
down by a “Horizon online
issue”. Even the 370 large
“Crown” post offices managed
centrally are not immune from
glitches, Latest known figures
show shortfalls there of £2.2m in a
year, although mysteriously these
haven t produced criminal sanctions.
‘These are just the latest episode in Horizon’s
inglorious history. It originated in 1996 in a joint
Department of Social Security-Post Office PFI
deal for an automated benefits payment system
with Pathway, part of ICL (now Fujitsu) on the
back of a cheap but technically flawed bid. Four
years and £1bn later it was ditched by the
government, with the Post Office left to convert it
into the Horizon automation project. Fujitsu still
runs the technical side of things.
The lengthening list of “shortfall” cases,
many in odd geographical clusters, has received
little attention beyond diligent investigation by
BBC South TV hack Nick Wallis and Computer
Weekly magazine. This could be about to change,
though, as solicitors Shoosmith begin action on
behalf of the 55, with another 150 cases pending.
The Post Office, fearing immense further
cost if its computer system is found wanting, has
its head firmly in the sand. There are, a
spokeswoman told the Eye, “no issues” with
Horizon (which is nonsense given the ones
already admitted). To say anything else would be
to admit that the computer on which it depends is
a pig in a poke that has not only wasted billions
but might now be dispensing miscarriages of
justice as well.
I ~
y
demanded to know whether any
action has been taken against trust
employees who had been criticised
at the tribunal for being “non-credible” and
engaging in collusion to illegally get rid of Yunus.
McDonnell wrote that the trust’s treatment of
‘Yunus was “shocking”, particularly in the way it
had ignored medical advice about his health while
he was going through the trumped-up disciplinary
processes. He added: “Many would consider it
deplorable that a mental health trust can treat its
own staff in this way. The fact that medical advice
was ignored is astounding,”
@ Anyone wishing to support Yunus in his legal
fight for reinstatement can donate to his legal
defence fund at: Defend Yunus Bakhsh Campaign,
c/o 46c Lawe Road, South Shields NE33 2EN.