9:51 AM | 
Posted by
Free Game Zone |
General McChrystal's dismissal should make commanders, diplomats and politicians think hard about our Afghan policy
So Obama has bitten the bullet - and the General McChrystal had for his insolence and dysfunctional personal command, and insubordination. Obama took a leaf out of the book of his hero Abraham Lincoln, who sacked general after general in the American civil war until he found the right one.
Honest Abe was as tough as old boots, and he sacked primarily because he thought the generals incompetent. The problem with McChrystal is that the arrogance of his special forces team that formed his headquarters couldn't hide that they just weren't delivering enough on their new counterinsurgency strategy which was to bring the fighting to an end within a couple of years.
This is the most dramatic sacking of an American commander by a president since President Truman fired Douglas MacArthur because he wanted to nuke the North and their Chinese allies in the Korean War some 60 years ago.
Following his month-long assignment to follow General McChrystal Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings concluded that: "Obama lost control of the Afghan policy about a year ago," as he told a radio interviewer. With this sacking, the president is trying to grab back the policy joystick on Afghanistan.
because he thought the McChrystal plan couldn't work.
Last year McChrystal called for first 21,000 and then 40,000 extra US troops to make his concept to defeat the Taliban work. Obama so far has given him 51,000 more troops. McChrystal said the international force of 150,000 would allow his troops to defend the civilian population, build up the Afghan army and police, and sufficiently thwart the Taliban to force them to the negotiating table.
So far, not so good. The first big operation this spring â€" to take, hold, and redevelop the fertile poppy growing district of Marja in Helmand is still far from successful. The Taliban at first lay low, went home for the poppy harvest, are now back in action raiding farms and killing and threatening the farmers. McChrystal himself has described Marja as "a bleeding ulcer".
This month American, Afghan, British and Canadian troops were supposed to begin the next major operation to restore order and government to Kandahar. This was to be the litmus test of the whole McChrystal strategy â€" at least for 2010. President Karzai, who has spoken up for the general â€" grounds for suspicion enough â€" has prevaricated about final approval for the Kandahar mission. The most powerful man in the town is his half brother Ahmed Walid, who is a law unto himself. So the week before last it was quietly announced that the operation was postponed until the autumn at the earliest.
So the McChrystal operational plan is stalled. Out on the ground McChrystal was losing the confidence of a lot of the American and British soldiers on the ground because of his instructions for "courageous restraint". These rules mean a soldier can only fire back if he can clearly indentify the figure of the man who fired at him, in order to minimise the risk of hitting civilians. This endangers the lives of soldiers because it means you cannot fire back in ambush positions â€" where the standard procedure is to "put down fire", a curtain of ordnance, in order to beat a retreat.
This of course hasn't affected the special forces, who became an informal Praetorian Guard for McChrystal and his command cell: they increased the number of special force squads to 19 recently. The critics accuse them of doing too much shooting and too little negotiating and reconciling with the Taliban. American special forces are accused of a number of nasty killings of civilians round Kandahar this spring, including shooting two pregnant womenand a passenger on a passenger bus.
There will be a lot of sucking of teeth now and quiet rethinking about where to go in Afghanistan, not least among British commanders who had a particularly close relationship with McChrystal.
Obama has laid down the gauntlet to the generals â€" they have to explain themselves better to him and the American public. Before this, they tried to intimidate him, by all accounts, as the men who knew the business in a subject area of which he knew little. The same process should happen here with arrival of the new coalition government. To argue for more of the same, that Afghanistan is vital to the security of mainland Britain, and that there is no other option is not good enough.
Yesterday another Royal Marine was killed in Sangin, where British soldiers have been trying to hold the town for the past four years in an area surrounded and infested by Taliban. Some 100 of the 303 British fatalities in Afghanistan have been recorded there, and about 1,000 wounded. Our generals say that not much is likely to change there, because in the McChrystal thinking, "Sangin is not on the main effort". But as one of the main entrepots on the east-west heroin trading route from Kandahar into Iran, it sure is on somebody else's main effort.
Most frightening aspect of the article Rolling Stone, that none of it speaks of victory or success, even. "Facts on the ground are not so great," says Celeste Ward Rand, adviser McChrystal, "and will not be big in the near future." Another advisor Marc Sageman, a former CIA officer, added: 'Afghanistan not in our vital interests, there is nothing 'for us. "
For the British military, especially the British special forces, McChrystal was a hero of almost Homeric proportions. His dismissal should make the commanders, diplomats and politicians think hard and think again about the Afghanistan policy from top to bottom. It is no use them clinging to the notion that the British army needs to defend its military honour and prowess to prove Britain is still a vital ally to the US â€" which is how some argue for our troops still being there. Notions of honour and fidelity are not in any sense practical operational objectives.
The McChrystal episode is not just a matter of an exasperated president sacking one of his generals for cheek. The whole debacle, the stalling campaign, the wavering focus, and the weird way it was all revealed to Rolling Stone, demonstrate the odd one-dimensional quality, very common in the special forces milieu of Stanley McChrystal.
From being the man of the hour last year, he now looks a bit like the wrong general with the wrong plan in the wrong place at the wrong time. A friend who knew McChrystal well in the special forces has just texted: "McChrystal's virtue is his vice: military obsession at the expense of breadth of vision. Wrong man for a profoundly political job."
[[[New York Yankees Authentic On Field Game 59FIFTY Cap (7 1/2)]]]
Description: This Authentic Collection 59FIFTY is the official on-field cap of Major League Baseball and is worn by every Major League Baseball player. Performance is enhanced through CoolBase technology featuring revolutionary wicking, superior drying, and shrink resistance. Designed with an embroidered (raised) Boston Red Sox team logo on front and stitched Major League Baseball logo on the rear. Interior includes branded taping as well as a CoolBase moisture wicking black sweatband. Fitted, closed back.
More review coming soon.
I finally took my first (and only) trip to The House That Steinbrenner Is Knocking Down in the summer of 2008. That's when I bought this hat.
This is THE official New Era New York Yankees 59Fifty ballcap in basic Bronx Bombers black. EVERY baseball fan (even a crazy Brooklyn Dodgers fan like me) needs to have a Yankees lid around the house, if for no other reason than to remember men like Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, who all played for the passion of it. Our National Pastime was once a GREAT sport before free agency, player strikes, and steroids tore the heart out of baseball.
This is essentially the same hat the boys in pinstripes wore when they LOST the '55 World Series to the Bums. I STILL think that The Duke was a better Center Fielder than The Mick, and that The Captain had as much character as The Iron Horse. Excuuuse me for being from Brooklyn, awright?
Anyhow, this is a nice hat. Fitted, it seemed a little smallish when first tried on, but a little bending of the brim got it to fit just right. I have other 59Fifty caps and they all have this same idiosyncrasy. It seems to personalize the fit. They are all top quality items.
Wear this in honor of what once was.
The hat is nice, what can I say I had to return it, because I am embarrased to say I am a yankee fan.
Cap arrived in perfect condition and in a timely fashion. It made a young Yankees fan friend of ours very happy--if you get a hug from a teen-age boy, you did good. He and his sister call us their third set of grandparents.
I recommend this company and Amazon and will continue to buy from both as needs arise.
Dale
Buy Here (for discount) New York Yankees Authentic On Field Game 59FIFTY Cap (7 1/2)
Not many believed Barack Obama would sack the Afghanistan war general â€" but the US president was right to assert his authority
I didn't think Barack Obama would sack the Afghanistan war general, Stanley McChrystal, at this dangerous stage in a near-impossible war.
Nor did Michael Hastings, the author of the Rolling Stone article that caused McChrystal's downfall.
But Obama did sack him, as his White House hero, Abraham Lincoln, did in much greater peril. Good for him. Civilian control of the military â€" which usually hovers between impotence and impudence â€" is an important principle that has needed reinforcing from time to time down the centuries.
The alternative is the drift towards what is sometimes known as Caesarism â€" after the process's most famous exponent â€" military-led authoritarianism of the kind the Turks (among others) have been struggling to escape.
The label Bonapartism would serve just as well and, unlike most of their third-rate emulators, both eponymous tyrants were exceptional military commanders.
In our own time, America's "military industrial complex" â€" against which its last ex-military president, that fastidious, underrated moderate, Dwight D Eisenhower, warned â€" has got above itself in the decades of military failure since Ike stood down in 1961.
And, as Colin Powell discovered, but had the good sense to ignore, US public opinion has an unhealthy weakness for uniforms which, as Simon Tisdall notes in his glum assessment, Polarisation "War on Terror" in the Bush years has aggravated.
Fortunately, as Tisdall also notes, respectable people on the right have backed the president's proper assertion of his authority.
Hastings' article is a good read, because it tells us more than author or general probably intended â€" most conspicuously about the vanity of a clever, impatient man whose CV contains murky episodes (like the controversy surrounding the NFL star-turned-soldier Pat Tillman's friendly fire cover-up) as well as brilliant innovative successes.
Was collaboration with this article an accident, a car crash no one spotted? I'd say no â€" it was a cheerful act of insubordination by a general (the son of a general, too) who, writes Hastings, learned years ago "how far he could go in a rigid military hierarchy without getting tossed out".
In themselves, his remarks were not outrageous â€" they're the sort of things people say when an inconvenient text message or email turns up. But this time, McChrystal miscalculated. Soldiers who do that get hit.
The reporter had been given extensive access to McChrystal's inner circle of loyal officers whose views of their political, military and diplomatic allies â€" foreign as well as in Kabul and Washington â€" are recorded in disastrously comic detail. Too many embedded reporters get suckered by access, he tells Jon Boone in today's Guardian.
Yet to judge from his own gleeful tone, Hastings seems over-impressed by the macho special forces culture (meeting a French minister is described as "fucking gay") he was observing up close and personal, as civilian reporters often do in the presence of bloodthirsty soldiers bursting with testosterone and self-confidence.
Our own General Mike Jackson has that effect on some people. You wouldn't want to bump into Jacko up a dark alley.
Hastings notes that, barely a year after taking over as the US/Nato commander in Kabul, McChrystal "has managed to piss off almost everybody with a stake in the conflict". Everybody except President Hamid Karzai, with whom he apparently had uniquely good relations.
Needless to say, McChrystal's "Team America" regards the US as having no allies in Afghanistan, a view Hastings endorses, which is also revealing in itself.
British squaddies dying out there in proportionately larger numbers than their cousins will take note, as they no doubt did when Britain's special envoy, ex-ambassador Sherard Cowper-Cowles, quit this week. Notoriously sceptical about Iraq, he was a negotiate not fight man in Afghanistan.
The Pakistani analyst Ahmed Rashid, the author of Taliban, which everyone rushed to buy after 9/11, is right to observe in the FT that disputes among Afghan leaders are matched by the lack of cohesion among the Nato allies, notably within the US camp.
Key players such as Richard Holbrooke, Karl Eikenberry, the general turned ambassador, and officials in Washington do not seem to speak much to each other. U.S. Dollars to buy a lot of corruption.
Surrounded by the conflicting advice, the president - who is anti-aliasing so long before covering McChrystal 's counter-insurgency (Coin) strategy and the troop surge - not imposed by itself. Defence commentator Robert Fox sets out the context and to comment Free .
All the same, Chris McGreal reported in the Guardian that Obama is still refusing either to drop his July 2011 timetable for a start to US troop withdrawal or its acceleration. The right wants a more open-ended commitment, while leftish Democrats want to pull out sooner. Obama faces what will be a tough re-election race in November 2012.
McChrystal is said to have voted for Obama, but did not hit it off with the president when they met â€" after Obama had sacked his Afghan commander, General David McKiernan.
He 's got a sophisticated Media Player so that we can assume that he knew that he was setting the tails in Washington, where he fought hard bureaucratic battle to get the strategy approved coins.
It 's one of several paradoxes in this yarn. McChrystal won and got what he wanted. But Hasn 't work, how the Taliban have not been bloodied in the negotiations, not to mention the surrender.
This latest row might be an attempt to duck the blame or blame spineless civilians for military failure. General David Petraeus, the military miracle maker, has been dispatched to the field again.
Before we leave McChrystal to whatever fate has in store for him, it's worth noting that his Coin strategy has proved unpopular with troops on the ground, even though they know he's a real soldier who pops up on patrol with them.
Why? Because he's stopped excessive use of air power which kills innocent Afghan civilians. Coin leads to more US deaths and, at a tense meeting, Hastings reports in his Rolling Stone piece, the grunts were not persuaded by their general.
Good for him, do I hear you say? Well, yes. In Vietnam, they used to call it "hearts and minds". But McChrystal is no softie. He was the Pentagon spokesman during the Iraq war, mixed up in George Bush's disastrous "mission accomplished" PR gaffe, and there was also prisoner abuse on his watch at Camp Nama, in Iraq.
But the Hastings detail that struck me as most bizarre was his reporting, in a very irony-free way, that when the general's wife turns up in Paris for a rare meeting to celebrate their wedding anniversary, he invites his soldiers along for the dinner too in the least French, most Irish bar they can find. They all get plastered.
It 's certainly enough to convince us that the talk about McChrystal to run for the White House is quite far from the truth. As for Petraeus, I 'D said cancer survivor who faints at a congressional hearing - as he did the other day - can not stomach or stamina for presidential politics either.
But you can never tell. When Lincoln sacked his useless and procrastinating (but popular) commander of the army of the Potomac,, Catastrophically wrong guy ran against him for president in 1864.
It was Lincoln's winning general, US Grant, who won the White House four years later and was as bad a president as he was a great general.
As for General MacArthur in 1951, people feared that it could work until the Senate Armed Services Committee hearings exposed his vanity and ignorance. It was Ike who took the White House from the Democrats in 1952.
It's the quiet ones, not the noisy show-offs, that you've got to watch.
[[[Good News For People Who Love Bad News [Explicit]]]]
Discription :
More review coming soon.
With this album, Modest Mouse, in my opinion, has reached a level of maturity that they have never achieved before. Unlike many other musicians, albums, songs on this album fantastic.
11-second lead in the track must be free, not 99 cents. These are just some horns rang for 11 seconds.
MODEST MOUSE
GOOD NEWS FOR PEOPLE WHO LOVE BAD NEWS
EPIC; 2003
MY RATING: 38/100
Isaac Brock and I would not see eye-to-eye on a lot of things; we view the world through exceedingly different lenses. However, as an artist, I nonetheless respect him, and really enjoy the overall sound of his band. I've been spinning Mouse records since `97 or so, and the first four years of the band's recorded output providing something of a soundtrack to the aimless nights of my youth. His early records in particular, though bitter and a bit twisted, bore an indelible melodic sweetness and sympathy underneath the rough exterior that belied a deep and unique soulfulness on his part. What I'm trying to say is that I speak as a fan. However, I'm sad to say that MM's fourth album is a monotonous screed of depraved bitterness and metaphysical angst, with the soul of it all and the sense of humor markedly absent. It's not like I haven't tried. I REALLY dig "Float On," and I chuckled when I saw it covered in a FORD commercial on American Idol. Similiary, "Blame it on the Tetons" is as pathetically righteous a track as "Custom Concern" or "Trailer Trash," so I gotta respect. But that's about it. "Ocean Breathes Salty" might have been a strong b-side, but it's just a bit too disonant to register as single-quality Mouse. "The Good Times Are Killing Me" sounds promising, but fails to deliver in the way "Styrofoam Boots" did on THE LONESOME CROWDED WEST. You can have the rest; there's just not a whole lot here to get excited about. A truly disappointing record.
TRACKS:
1.Horn Intro
2. The World at Large (3/5)
3. Float On (5/5)
4. Ocean Breathes Salty (3/5)
5. Dig Your Grave
6. Bury Me With It (2/5)
7. Dance Hall (2.5/5)
8. Bukowski (2.5/5)
9. This Devil's Workday (2/5)
10. The View (2/5)
11. Satin in a Coffin (2/5)
12. Interlude (Milo)
13. Blame it on the Tetons (4.5/5)
14. Black Cadillacs (3/5)
15. One Chance (2,5 / 5)
16. The Good Times Are Killing Me (4/5)
Buy Here (for discount) Good News For People Who Love Bad News [Explicit]
Oxford philosopher, Tory thinker and regular on popular Radio 4 panel shows
Anthony Quinton, who has died aged 85, was the funniest philosopher since Hume. A political philosopher and metaphysician, as well as a writer about ethics, philosophy of mind and the history of ideas, he taught at New College, Oxford, for 23 years. He went on to be president of Trinity College from 1978 to 1987, and chairman of the board of the British Library from 1985 to 1990.
A member of a thinktank that advised Margaret Thatcher's government, he displayed a brilliance as a theoretician that tremendously impressed the prime minister herself, and was created a life peer in 1982. But he was never swayed by what was fashionable, either in philosophy or politics. He was more of an old-style patrician Tory than a new-style libertarian, although liberal in his views on homosexuality and florid in life-style. "A man with his own voice," the biographer Richard Ellmann called him.
Quinton is best known in academic circles for his book on metaphysics, The Nature of Things (1973), and also for his more popular The Politics of Imperfection (1978), about the history of conservatism. Utilitarian Ethics (1973) was a brilliant exposition of utilitarianism â€" the notion, which he himself espoused, that morality consists in promoting the greatest happiness of the greatest number. He was firmly in the Anglo-American analytic school, and of a robust empiricist persuasion, holding that only what can ultimately be traced back to sensory experience should count as knowledge â€" he excoriated the "rhapsodic style" and "Bacchanalian revels of unreason" of much continental philosophy.
Yet, his no-nonsense Dr Johnson tendency, coupled with the Humean sensibility of an 18th-century man of letters, gave him a conception of philosophy that was more wide-ranging and pluralistic than that of his socialite, socialist friend and fellow empiricist, AJ (Freddie) Ayer. Regarding philosophy as "the criticism of assumptions", one of the dogmas he criticised was Ayer's verification principle. Anglo-Saxon philosophy had a "strangely attenuated way" of dealing with humans, treating them as merely rational thinking beings. Cooking and laughing, he said, were also defining human characteristics.
A penetrating but unmalicious wit, and a marvellous raconteur, Quinton could make a well-aimed, funny, affectionate speech for any occasion at the drop of a hat, and often featured on Radio 4 series that combined humour and scholarship, such as Round Britain Quiz, which he chaired, and Quote Unquote. "When he started to talk," said a fellow academic, "men, women, children, animals, all downed tools to listen."
Tremendously erudite, he seemed to have total recall. He could lucidly distil the essence of the Chinese novel, Portuguese architecture, the most abstruse philosopher, or a television soap, when asked, and was frequently consulted by colleagues for the source of quotations or references, which he would supply on the back of a racy postcard. During tutorials at New College, he would sit on the sofa like Humpty Dumpty, delivering an amusing lecturette on the students' topic, occasionally interrupting it to answer the phone and provide a recipe for pheasant sauce before turning back unruffled to resume his discourse.
Quinton was educated at the liberal public school, Stowe, in Buckinghamshire. His father was a surgeon captain in the Royal Navy. At the beginning of the second world war, Anthony and his mother were sent to Canada on the SS City of Benares. It was torpedoed, and they were among 50 people who were lowered to the sea in a lifeboat. Twenty-seven of these fell overboard when the boat's prow dropped, and, after 20 hours drifting in the ocean, only eight were actually rescued. Quinton was proud of his mother for behaving with "old-fashioned grit", managing to hold on to her handbag throughout the ordeal.
It was by no means the worst experience of his life, he would later say, but some of his friends wondered if it accounted for his being "quite good at eating". In middle age, when, after a walk in the Berkshire Downs, he and some friends spotted a village shop selling pies, cakes and fizzy drinks under the sign Quality Our Motto, Quinton said, "Oh dear, 'Quantity' mine."
In January 1943, Quinton went to Christ Church, Oxford, on a scholarship, but that August, aged 18, he joined the RAF as a flying officer and navigator, returning to finish his degree in philosophy, politics and economics in 1946, and graduating with a first two years later. All Souls College made him a prize fellow in 1949, along with Isaiah Berlin and Bernard Williams, but turned down Ayer. In 1955, Quinton began to teach philosophy at New College, and was soon part of Ayer's seminal discussion group, which also included Peter Strawson, Michael Dummett and David Pears, and later Paul Grice and Philippa Foot.
Despite his brilliance, he was never very prolific, yet his slim output was incisive and influential. In the much-cited article Spaces and Times (1962), he mooted that it was possible in principle for someone to inhabit two spatially unrelated worlds, one of which is his waking reality, the other the reality of continuous and coherent dreams.
In 1967, he both cut through and clarified logical tangles in his paper on the a priori and the analytic in Strawson's Philosphical Logic, and edited the collection Political Philosophy. His magnum opus, The Nature of Things (1973), presented a materialist metaphysics, taking as its central theme the much-disputed concept of substance, originated by Aristotle. Quinton argued that there are four distinct, if connected, problems of substance, and that many of the muddles in philosophy have been brought about by failure to recognise this distinctness. Thoughts and Thinkers (1982) and From Wodehouse to Wittgenstein (1998) were collections of his eclectic and witty articles and papers.
Quinton had a long association with New College, starting in 1955, and was made emeritus fellow in 1980 and honorary fellow in 1997. Consulted in 1969 about concerns that male undergraduates were cohabiting with women in the college, Quinton (himself pretty portly at this time) declared, "That is most unlikely, considering the size of the rooms," and the matter was laid to rest. The following year, a proposal that undergraduates should be allowed to sleep with women undisturbed at weekends was met with the objection that this was "the thin end of the wedge". "Better than the other," said Quinton. He failed to be elected warden of New College, but did become head of Trinity.
Unusually wealthy for an academic, Quinton owned a London flat in St James's Square (later one in Albany, Piccadilly), a cottage in the country, and in New York â€" the home city of his wife, Marcelle Wegier, whom he married in 1952 â€" an apartment on 5th Avenue and a house on Long Island. Maybe wealth sapped his ambition. Under "recreations" in his section in Who's Who, is the terse entry: "Sedentary pursuits".
He was never, as the philosopher Ronald Dworkin said, celebrated enough by Oxford. Widely perceived as out of tune with the times â€" conservative, unsympathetic to student revolt, snobbish even â€" he was, in fact, with his huge capacity for enjoyment, easy wit, unpretentiousness, very much a creature of his hedonistic era. He enjoyed opulence but also the studenty hobby of "totting": ferreting around in dustbins for useful items.
And why should angst have metaphysical priority over the mystic's sense of unity with the universe, or over "the practical man's conviction that the world is his oyster"? For him, philosophy was "an essentially social undertaking", and dialogue "its bloodstream". Yet despite his bonhomie and clubbability, he himself was hard to pin down. "A monster of urbanity," a friend called him, but added that ultimately he was unknowable, with "much more to him than his chromium-plated exterior would suggest".
He is survived by Marcelle, a daughter and a son.
• Anthony Meredith Quinton, Baron Quinton, philosopher, born 25 March 1925; died 19 June 2010
[[[New Wave Enviro Premium 10 Stage Filter Replacement Cartridge]]]
Discription : The Ten Stage Premium Countertop Filter Replacement Cartridge works exclusively with Enviro Products Ten Stage Premium Filter to provide 10 stages of protection against major water contaminants
More review soon.
This filter cartridge, as well as New Wave Enviro system gives the best tasting water - it's better than any other on the market, and it lasts a whole year! Try it.
If you have a New Wave Enviro housing, this is a replacement filter that will work for it. I used to buy replacement filters for mine at Wh*le F**ds, but they stopped carrying them. I wasn't sure if this would work for me, but I gave it a shot, and it fits perfectly.
My city water is clean, but I do not t ', how to taste. This filter makes it taste the best of purified spring water. It 'that I want, and' s what this product delivers.
That is to say that I'm interested mainly in TASTE. If you're picky/concerned enough about water quality from a chemical content perspective to desire certification on a filter, than maybe you'd like to pay $500 for something like this: Multi-Pure Countertop Water Filter - Certified for Arsenic Reduction!. While it's nice to know that such products exist, $60 covers my concerns just fine. If I want to get it done, I think my city offers in-home water quality testing - yours might too. (This is in reference to a reviewer who, I think unfairly, gives this filter one star for not being something that it doesn't claim to be.)
Bugs me when people give misleading negative reviews because they want a product to be different from what it is.
We use a filter for 3 years. Recommended by Dr. Jordan Rubin (Maker 's Diet). We love it.
Buy here (at discount) New Wave Enviro Premium 10 Stage Replacement Filter Cartridges
The armed forces are considering whether (finally) allow women to serve on submarines - and in the melee unit
The real question, says Nicola, who left the Royal Navy a while ago but would rather we didn't print her name, is why anyone would want to go to sea in a submarine in the first place. "The frigates, the destroyers, the helicopters, they're fun â€" incredibly hard work, of course, but fun. You're in and out of different ports, the crew's always changing, the task's never the same. But submarines? They are just not very attractive places. And being locked up in one for six months at a time, it does something to people's minds. They're known as fishheads."
News of the week that the Royal Navy will soon allow women to serve as sailors on submarines - Including his 11-strong fleet of nuclear submarines - drew predictably colorful spectrum of reactions (\\ "On the FFS," wrote one sarcastic submariner in the online newsletter for sailors, "what 's the end of our reputation Silent service and then. ")
But the possibility that it could be accompanied by a separate, even more far-reaching move that might see women take up frontline combat roles in the army for the first time is likely to cause even greater consternation. "It's a possibility," a defence ministry official says. "You could see it playing either way. The arguments are strong on both sides."
More than 70% of all posts in Britain's army and navy, and more than 95% of posts in the RAF, are currently open to women, who in 2009 accounted for 3,830 of the 31,690 officers in Britain's three armed services, and 14,020 of the 156,680 other ranks: more than 9% of the total personnel, and rising steadily, according to the MoD, every year.
Women have been serving on surface ships, as aircrew and in a wide variety of army roles since the early 1990s; the forces are now integrated and the Wrens, Wracs and Wrafs are a distant memory. Since the arrival of the Blair government in 1997, women have also been appointed to frontline positions on board warships, as fighter jet pilots and in army combat support roles as artillery plotters, medics, intelligence specialists, logisticians and signallers. There's now even, in the shape of Flt Lt Kirsty Moore, a woman in the RAF's Red Arrows.
Women remain, however, barred from two main kinds of military activity. They may not currently serve on submarines, nor may they be part of any unit that is, in the words of the MoD, "required deliberately to close with and kill the enemy face-to-face". That means women are currently excluded from the Submarine Service, the Royal Marine Commandos, the Household Cavalry, the Royal Armoured Corps, the infantry and the Royal Air Force Regiment.
Submarines these days are "very different environments", he says, and there would be few practical problems adapting the submarines: "A nuclear submarine carries maybe 150 people. There are usually 15-man bunk spaces. What's to stop one or more of those being allocated to women? And one could relatively easily create a good career path for women in the submarine service. After that, as with any crew, it's getting the mix right."
But will women want to serve beneath the waves? Despite the "very direct" sexism she encountered on some navy frigates ("It all depends on the hierarchy; if the captain's a sexist, the whole boat can be a nightmare for women"), Nicola says she hugely enjoyed her years in the navy.
"But I'm just not sure who would be interested in submarines. There's not the same variety of work, there's the fact you don't see daylight for six months, that whole aspect of being cooped up, with no chance of getting off. It wouldn't be for me."
Ferguson, too, isn't sure how many would-be women submariners are out there. "We were a bit optimistic about the numbers in the frigates," he says. "A lot were converted to accommodate women, and a fair few then quietly converted back."
Nonetheless, Ferguson says, on surface vessels women sailors have "proved themselves across the board; their commitment, resolve and dedication have helped raise overall standards". In army combat roles, they haven't yet been given the chance.
That's principally, the MoD says, because the basic combat unit remains the small, four-person fire team â€" and introducing women to that may not prove "combat effective". "This environment poses extraordinary demands on the individuals, and success or failure â€" and survival â€" depend upon the cohesion of the team in extreme circumstances for which there are no direct comparisons," it concluded in a 2002 report justifying its decision not to allow women into close-combat roles (a report of this kind is required every eight years under EU equality law; the latest is due by the end of this year).
It points out that the only countries that have used women in close combat roles â€" the former Soviet Union, which deployed some 800,000 during the second world war, 70% of whom saw frontline action, and the Israeli Defence Force, which deployed women extensively in the 1948 war â€" both abandoned the practice as soon as each war had ended.
(In the Israeli case, as a respected US Lt Col, David Grossman, has noted in a book called On Killing, this was not because of any problems with women soldiers' performance, but because of the instinctual reaction of male infantrymen who witnessed women colleagues being wounded: they went, essentially, to pieces.)
The MoD does not delve into such murky psychological waters. It does, though, claim that the differences in sheer physical strength between men and women mean that only 0.1% of female applicants, and 1% of trained women soldiers, could meet the lifting, carrying, load marching and combat requirements that are the bread and butter of British infantry life.
Not that that is, in itself, reason enough to maintain a blanket ban on all women taking up close combat roles, the ministry stresses. Nor does it believe there are major psychological differences that might make women less capable of fixing a bayonet on a rifle, going over the top, and sticking it into someone.
But it does worry about the "critical cohesion" of a combat team made up of both sexes. No concrete work has ever been done on the effects of gender-mixing in combat situations, it points out (trials involving an experimental mixed infantry unit were dismissed by some male participants as "so unrealistic they amounted to aggressive camping").
That does not, of course, rule out a single-sex, all-woman combat team, an option the MoD does not appear to have considered. A respected Israeli woman general, Yehudit Ben-Natan, has long argued for this: "The heart and soul of the army is in combat, and if we are in the army we need to be at its heart," she says. "Let there be tanks with all-female crews, and all-woman missile batteries, because we can do it and we must stop allocating duties by gender."
But for the British army, the MoD concluded in 2002, the small size of the basic combat unit, the unrelenting mental and physical pressure it faces, and the fact that even a minute failure can lead to loss of life and mission failure all mean that, for the time being, admitting women to combat positions represents a risk with no compensating combat effectiveness benefit.
That, we can safely conclude, remains the position of many of its senior figures. But there is mounting criticism that such restrictions are largely irrelevant in 21st-century warfare. The fact is, says a mid-ranking army officer, that "these days, it's very difficult to talk of a frontline. The danger in Helmand isn't being on the frontline, it's simply being in Helmand. You're in danger as soon as you leave the base â€" even inside it."
And the ban has not stopped some of the 1,600 women currently serving in Iraq and Afghanistan being killed. Second Lt Joanna Dyerdied in Basrah for 2007. The following year, Corporal Sarah Bryant became the only British woman soldier to die in Afghanistan. Other women have performed spectacular feats of bravery: in 2006, in Iraq, then Private Michelle Norris became the first woman to win Britain's top military award for gallantry, the Military Cross, after crawling through sniper fire to rescue her wounded sergeant, a man.
Captain Alli Shields insisted to the Observer last year that it "doesn't matter whether women are allowed to join the infantry or not. Girls are fighting the enemy, one way or another, every day. The fact that a girl dies alongside guys just shows she could do the same job." Commander Ferguson concurs: drawing a distinction between combat and non-combat roles these days, he says, amounts "largely to an exercise in semantics". We'll have to wait until the end of the year to see whether the MoD agrees.
The cost of spin, parents struggling to pay for healthy meals; and building up a picture of where the cuts are happening
Society Guardian Top stories
Treasury sends back Lansley's radical blueprint for NHS
Budget cuts "could cause up to 38,000 extra deaths," says report
Parents on low incomes struggling to pay for healthy meals, says Ofsted
Ex-chief of the hospital wins £ 190000 pay
Union boss warns of "co-ordinated strike action" against cuts
Mosquito youth dispersal alarms face ban
Editorial: raising the state pension age
Rhydian von James on Disability Benefits
All today's Society Guardian stories
Other news
• Coalition ministers are considering an opportunity to rethink its policy of capping immigration levels after warnings from business that severe restrictions could adversely affect the economy , reports the Financial Times
• Care homes could be forced out of business after councils proposed an average fees increase of 0.5% reports the Daily Telegraph. Costs of providing care are expected to rise by 2.1%.
• Carrying out Criminal Records Bureau checks has cost the voluntary sector £220m in eight years, says a Manifesto Club study reported in Third Sector
• The Cabinet Office has pledged to scrap hundreds of "unneccesary and expensive" government websites
• The chair of Ofsted, Zenna Atkins, has resigned.
The cost of spin and scapegoating
The last government had a prediliction for making dramatic interventions in the careers of public servants. It had the appearance of making ministers seem bold and decisive, and appeasing a rabid tabloid press. But did they also play fast and loose with employment law and due process? And at what cost?
Nearly three years ago Rose Gibb, the ex-chief executive of Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS trust negotiated a £250,000 severance deal with the trust in the wake of a critical report into appalling hygiene failures at the trust. But in the face of public outrage the then health secretary Alan Johnson declared that he would step in to halt the payment (although she subsequently received £75,000 notice pay).
Yesterday, after a lengthy appeal process Gibb was awarded £190,000 damages by a judge who ruled that she had done "nothing wrong" and been made "a public sacrifice". Lord Justice Sedley said:
"It seems that the making of a public sacrifice to deflect press and public obloquy, which is what happened to the appellant, remains an accepted expedient of public administration."
He added:
"On the scale of severance payments, not only in the private sector but in parts of the public sector, £240,000 was not on its face outlandish compensation for the arbitrary termination of a career which it was unlikely Ms Gibb would be able to resume or resurrect. The effect of unwarranted departmental interference has thus been to trap the Trust between a rock and a hard place and to expose it, in its attempt to escape, to heavy legal costs.
"Central government (which, it seems, will be picking up the bill) might have done better to recognise that the Trust, in reaching the agreement, had been making the best of a bad job; and perhaps better still to recognise that the bad job had been the decision, which the Department does not appear to have cavilled at, to sacrifice on the altar of public relations a senior official who had done nothing wrong."
The cost of the taxpayer in the lawsuit is estimated as "up to 1 million pounds" in the Daily Telegraph. Judge Sedley concluded:
"Perhaps those responsible will now reflect that, since such blame as the report allocated was subsequently accepted by the Trust's board - all of whom resigned following publication of the report - there had been no good reason to dismiss the CEO; and that all this money, both compensation and costs, could have been spent on improving hygiene and patient care in the Trust's hospitals."
It's hard not to agree with Jon Restell, chief executive of Managers in Partnership (a trade union which was backing Gibb) said:
"The court has found that ministers in the last government were more concerned with spin and public relations than open and mature accountability"
Gibbs' treatment at the hands of the state has some parallels with that of Sharon Shoesmith, the ex-Haringey children's services boss who was summarily sacked without compensation by the council at the behest of the then children's minister Ed Balls at the height of the Baby P furore. Shoesmith is considering appealing her failed judiucial review of her dismissal, and may yet proceed to emplyment tribunal. The Gibb ruling will surely have been read with interest - and trepidation - by Shoesmith's former employers.
I read ...
• Community Links' snapshot "micro" analysis of how the budget would impact on its home borough of Newham in east London. Among several sobering observations is this one:
\\ "36% of jobs in Newham in the public sector (in the top 10% of the country). Newham Council has already had to cut ?? 30 million (C.7%) from this year 's budget ... If we are to see a departmental reduction by 25% during this parliament and to freeze council tax, as many of these jobs will go in Newham? "
• On a similar theme, Will Perrin's account of how "hyper-local" websites covered this week's emergency budget ...
• Colin Talbot's account for Whitehall Watch of what 25% cuts might look like at the Home Office ...
• Observations on the "big society"Harris Blogger Kevin:
"What does BS mean for the local activist who is moved to confront social injustice, not just for the cakestall mafia? When street reps in Shipley talk to me about the tensions between being a 'good citizen' (reporting disorder, keeping an eye out for drug drops, liaising with agencies etc) and campaigning to become empowered and overcome inequalities (activism in the local political arena), it feels like Big Society is not ready to provide the frameworks for that activism, to accommodate awkwardness."
• University of Bristol research paper looking at the family search and coordination in decision- . Findings included included 'lack of realism "about the prospects of finding suitable families for some children:
"Children's social workers often strove to find a notional 'ideal' family for children, and were sometimes unwilling to alter the requirements (eg. insistence on an adoptive couple or placing a large sibling group together) even when no family could be found. Another obstacle was inadequate sharing of information about children's difficulties, so that some adoptive parents found that the children placed with them had more profound difficulties than anticipated."
• That the legendary Mass ObservationCommunity project stories going all Web 2.0. It 's to create an online space where community groups are encouraged to document their work and daily life . And from here I discovered the fabulous My Brighton and Hovesite ... (Thanks for the tip to the young team of social innovation fund )
• Social enterpreneur and blogger Craig Dearden-Phillips' account of a planning battle in the town where he livesIn which to his great surprise, he finds himself in alliance with Norman Tebbit ...
?€? And, although we have on this issue, that football player and a pioneer of environmentally Gary Neville 's invited to "Teletubby" house near Bolton (the so-called "flagship green home") failed to obtain a building permit ...
Guardian Cutswatch
Public services cuts are a national story - but also a local one. This week we've launched Cutswatch, a Guardian crowdsourcing project. We want to build up a picture of where the cuts are happening, and try to understand how they are beginning to change our schools, hospitals, universities, social services, charities, leisure centres, libraries, and housing and regeneration schemes.
We want to chart how the deepest public spending cuts for 30 years are impacting on individuals and neighbourhoods and how they will transform our communities. To do that, we need your help and your voices. Use our online form to tell us what's happening in your area or to the organisation you work for or receive services from. Tell us who it will affect and what the consequences are likely to be.
Send us as much hard information as you can: links to articles or official papers, documents or announcements. Tell us about budget reductions, grant cuts, changes in work routines, cancelled projects and job losses. We will use the information you send to CutswatchTo help inform the news and features coverage, blogs and comments on the Guardian and the Observer.
Society Guardian blogs
Joe Public
Sarah Boseley's global health blog
Guardian awards
Guardian Public Services awards 2010
Guardian Charity Awards 2010
Society Guardian social enterprise summit
We are starting this year the plan 's Society Guardian Social Entrepreneurship Summit. "Last year 'summit was a great success - you can read about it here. Once again we are looking to showcase inspiration, innovation and practical ideas on how social enterprises can deliver public services. Whether you are from the public sector or from a social business, we want you to tell us who you'd like to see and what you would like to see discussed. Email to charmian.walker-smith@guardian.co.uk. You can Follow Guardian Social Enterprise on Twitter
Society Daily blog
Society Daily blog editor: Patrick Butler
Email the editor: Patrick.Butler@guardian.co.uk
Follow Patrick Butler on Twitter
Register to society briefing e-mail daily
Society Guardian Links
SocietyGuardian.co.uk
Follow Society Guardian on Twitter
Enter the Guardian Public Services Awards
Public - the Guardian's website for senior public sector executives
The Guardian's public and voluntary sector careers page
Hundreds of public and voluntary sector jobs
Society Guardian editor: Alison Benjamin
Email the SocietyGuardian editor: society@guardian.co.uk
New carbon dating techniques reveal that 14,700 years ago humans living in Gough's Cave in the Mendips acquired a taste for the flesh of their relatives, and not just for ritual reasons
Scientists have identified the first humans to recolonise Britain after the last ice age. The country was taken over in a couple of years by individuals who practised cannibalism, they say - a discovery that revolutionises our understanding of the peopling of Britain and the manner in which men and women reached these shores.
Studies have shown that the tribes of hunter-gatherers moved to England from France and Spain, with extraordinary rapidity, when global warming ended the ice age 14,700 years ago and lived in a cave - known as the Gough 's cave - in Cheddar Gorge in the fact that now Somerset.
From the bones they left behind, scientists have also discovered these people were using sophisticated butchering techniques to strip flesh from the bones of men, women and children.
"These people were processing the flesh of humans with exactly the same expertise that they used to process the flesh of animals," said Professor Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London. "They stripped every bit of food they could get from those bones."
The discovery of the speed of Britain's recolonisation after the last ice age, and the disquieting fate of some of those first settlers, is the result of two major technological breakthroughs. The first involves the development of a technique known as ultra-filtration carbon dating. Perfected by scientists based at Oxford University's radiocarbon accelerator unit, it allows researchers to pinpoint the ages of ancient bones and other organic material with unprecedented accuracy.
The second breakthrough involves the use of a machine known as the Alicona 3D microscope. Using this device, Dr Sylvia Bello of the Natural History Museum has studied the cut marks left on bones of humans and animals in Gough's Cave. Scientists already knew cannibalism had been practised in the cavern, but were unclear if it was a ritual process or involved the deliberate killing of humans. However, Bello has found humans had been butchered with the same stone tools that had been used to cut up animals. In other words, animal and human flesh was treated the same way by these early Britons.
In addition to these findings, the discovery â€" by Danish scientists a few years ago â€" that the last ice age ended with astonishing rapidity has also played a key role in reappraising the recolonisation of Britain. Far from being a gradual process, in which men and women slowly reoccupied territory that had been taken from them by spreading glaciers, the resettling of Britain now appears to have been rapid, dramatic and bloody.
Britain's icy desolation ended abruptly 14,700 years ago when there was a dramatic leap in temperatures across the globe according to ice-cores found in Greenland and lake sediments in Germany. In less than three years, temperatures had soared by around 6 to 7 degrees Celsius and ice sheets began a rapid retreat throughout the world.
"Whatever the reason, it was good news in those days, because the world was so cold and so it heated up nicely. However, if a rise like that happened today it would be devastating," said Dr Tom Higham, deputy director of the Oxford radiocarbon unit. "The world would be scorched. That is one of the most important aspects of the story of the resettling of Britain."
Higham's work, in collaboration with his late colleague Roger Jacobi, has involved studying the ages of the bones found at Gough's Cave in the Somerset Mendips, the earliest post-ice age site at which modern human remains have been found. The bones of half a dozen people â€" including children, adolescents and adults â€" were found in the cave in the 1980s, a discovery that made national headlines when it was revealed that these remains bore patterns of cut marks that suggested they had been the victims of cannibalism.
Other sites of this antiquity, in Germany and France, have also supplied evidence that human bones had been butchered. But the Gough's Cave finds were puzzling because radiocarbon dates indicated that humans had used the cave for more than 2,000 years, including several centuries in which the country would have been covered in ice sheets.
"The problem with radiocarbon dates of this antiquity is that it only takes a tiny trace of contamination from modern organic material to distort results," said Higham. "That is why we kept getting such a range of ages from the Gough's Cave bones."
To get round this problem, Jacobi and Higham worked on a technique â€" known as ultra-filtration â€" which involves using a series of complex chemical treatments to destroy any modern contamination in samples taken from the cave. First results of dates supplied using this technique were published by the scientists in a paper in Quaternary Science Reviews last year and were based on their re-analysis of the bones of Gough's Cave. These revealed a very different picture for the ages for the bones than had previously been calculated.
In those days, humans were nomadic hunter-gatherers: strong, relatively well-nourished individuals who followed the herds of wild horses that then roamed Europe. These animals provided men, women and children with their main source of protein. "The weather suddenly got warm, the horses headed north and men and women followed them," said Higham. "It would have been a very rapid business."
As for the route of this migration, it probably took these ancient hunter-gatherers across Doggerland â€" a now submerged stretch of land in the North Sea that is known as Dogger Bank today â€" and into eastern England. Within a couple of years, they had reached Gough's Cave, though the cavern would not have formed a permanent residence but would most likely have served as a refuge to which they could return on a regular basis.
Previously it was thought that the cave was occupied, on or off, about 2000 years. Nevertheless, a new set of dates generated Higham shows that not only do they cluster around the dates of 14700 years before present, but they cover only a very narrow range of about 100 years or less. In other words, the cave was occupied only for a few generations at that time.
However, it is the behaviour of those few generations that has perplexed scientists for the past 20 years and which led to the new investigation by Bello. "The bone fragments we have found suggest we are looking at the remains of five individuals," she said. "These remains include one young child, aged between three and four, two adolescents, a young adult and an older adult. So we have every kind of age group represented in the Gough's Cave remains."
Bello has found that each of these sets of remains is covered with marks that show they had been the subject of comprehensive butchery, with all muscle and tissue being stripped from them. But why de-flesh those bones in the first place? What triggered such an extreme act? To provide answers, scientists have put forward a number of different theories. These include suggestions that it was a form of ritual which involved the eating of small pieces of a relative's flesh, not as a source of nutrition, but as an act of homage.
Others have argued that it involved a form of crisis cannibalism in which people ate the flesh of others because all other sources of food had disappeared. "An example of that sort of cannibalism was provided by the Andes air crash in 1972 when survivors ate the flesh of those who had been killed in the accident," said Stringer.
And finally, there simply cannibalism, where the men hunt, kill and devour other people, as they prefer to mankind. This is sometimes called the killing of cannibalism.
The new evidence that is emerging from Bello's work does not resolve the issue, though some significant pointers have been uncovered. "These people were breaking up bones to get at the marrow inside," he said. "They were stripping off all of the muscle mass. Brains seemed to have been removed. Tongues seemed to have been removed. And it is also possible that eyes were being removed. It was very systematic work." In addition, human remains appear to have been disposed of in the same way as animal bones, by being dumped in a single pit.
Such evidence suggests straightforward cannibalism was carried out in Gough's Cave. However, there are other factors to note, said Bello. "These were very difficult times and it is still quite possible people ate each other because there simply wasn't anything else to eat." The landscape â€" although rapidly recovering â€" would still have been pretty barren, particularly in winter.
In addition, Bello also pointed out that the remains of only a few individuals had been found at Gough's Cave. In other words, there is no evidence that large-scale human butchery had been practised there. "That means we cannot completely rule out the possibility that this was some form of ritual cannibalism, although I think it is unlikely," said Bello.
At present, most evidence indicates that humans were probably using the skills that they had acquired in butchering animal flesh, in particular the meat of horses as well as reindeer, another stone age favourite, in order to cut up humans who had died of natural causes.
"We don't see any traumatic wounds in these remains which would suggest violence was being inflicted on living people. This was some kind of cultural process that they brought with them from Europe," he said.
Whatever the nature of the cannibalism that was carried out by these early settlers, it did them little good in the end. Two thousand years after the ice age ended, Europe was plunged into a new, catastrophic freeze. A massive lake of glacial meltwater built up over northern America. Then it burst its banks and billions of gallons of icy water poured into the north Atlantic, deflecting the Gulf Stream. Temperatures in Britain plunged back to their ice age levels and the country was once again completely depopulated.
"This new period of intense cold lasted for more than a thousand years," said Stringer. "Only by 11,500 years did conditions start to return to their present level â€" and Britain was colonised by humans for the last time."
For a unique take on the world of fashion, sign up to the Guardian's fashion emailand get all the latest news direct to your inbox
FASHION DILEMMA
How did a website take over the world?
Back in the distant, halcyon days of 2000, when the economy was healthy (or so they told us), the millennium was brand new, and we were all terribly relieved not to have been eaten by giant robot mutant lizards controlled by the Millennium Bug, a small online fashion company was born. Duplicating celebrity-inspired products, As Seen on Screen had three employees but big ambitions. A decade later, it has over 1,000 employees and one trillion gazillion items of fashion. Oh, all right, 36,000 then. Tsk, you're such pedants.
But where once after ASOS, it now has. From role model celebrity fashion, he was so far away that is now actually set trends celebrity . Asos own-label creations are now worn by celebrities from Rihanna to Kate Hudson. At the current rate of growth, we will be living in the People's Republic of Asos by 2020. Fashion Statement likes to imagine it will be a benign dictatorship, though we do worry for the safety of harem trouser refusniks.
So how did this tiny start-up become the UK's leading fashion site, at a time when traditional rivals with a much longer heritage were - and are - struggling? There are many reasons: the site offers something for everyone - men and women of course, but also maternitywear, beauty products and kidswear. Although it does sell premium items, the average price is reasonable and accessible, the site is easy to navigate, and it is painless to return items - which is more, in Fashion Statement's experience, than can be said for some far more expensive online retailers. Then there is the generation it sells to, its key demographic - one that expects a snappy online experience as a matter of course.
So what does the future hold, other than an almost certain increase on £223m in sales? With the aforementioned celebrity endorsements, Asos is clearly well on its way to establishing itself as a designer brand, not just a store. The Asos Black collection (eveningwear, very luxe) will be followed in September by Asos White, a more daytime-friendly collection. FS has already noted a gorgeous suede satchel with pink trim from the capsule bag collection.
FS, of course, also approves heartily of Asos's Green Room, a virtual chamber dedicated to ethical fashion. The latest addition to the room is the fantastic Fin Feline range - view the best pieces here. We're also very pleased that there will be a second collection of the Asos Africa line, launched earlier this year and made by small producer groups in Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa.
Then there's the exclusives - Scott Wilson (launching mid-July) and Hudson (early July), and new labels coming on board all the time - the autumn/winter collections will include Ally Cappelino, JW Anderson and Barbour. And best of all for those reading outside the UK, later this year Asos will be establishing a US website and dedicated sites for France and Germany. See, we told you - it's taking over the world.
So we'll end with a plea to Asos. With the aforementioned trillion gazillion items on the site, sometimes FS gets browsing fatigue. As your next move, please can we have online personal shoppers to do all that tedious business of finding things that suit us?
BANG ON TREND
Summer jersey frocks
Sorry chaps, but really, you have it easy in the summer. All you need is a T-shirt and you're good to go (note to football supporters: football matches are NOT an excuse to a) wear hideous replica kits or b) take off said T-shirt if temperature is over 13C). Whereas us poor, long-suffering ladies have to stare in bafflement into our wardrobes every morning. Honestly, the hurdles we have to overcome are truly heart-rending. Are our legs too pale? Is this dress a bit see-through? Is it too hot for jeans? Will this skirt just crease the instant it even sees our desk? It's a wonder we manage to carry on, never mind hatch our secret plans for world domination.
Here to make your lives a little easier, then, are some nice, simple, easy-to-wear summer frocks. After considerable thought and experimentation, FS has decided that jersey is the ideal fabric for summer. It doesn't crease like cotton, it drapes flatteringly, and it doesn't need ironing. Which is good, because FS doesn't possess an iron.
First of all, FS favorite new discovery, Nancy Dee. This is a great cloud of print sundress (£60) has a full-ish skirt, wooden button detailing, and is ridiculously comfy and easy to wear - and it's organic and fairly traded too. Another easy-to-wear piece is this tunic-style dress from Stewart+Brown at Adili (£105) - again from organic cotton.
We also feature neckline and simple detailing French Connection dress , currently on sale (£47). It comes in a variety of lovely shades, but if you prefer to keep it simple with a black frock, this All Saints wrap-style jersey dress is currently down to a bargain £27.50. Of course, being All Saints, it's got an asymmetric hem (seriously, do they have a ban on straight lines in the All Saints design studio? Are they allowed rulers? Do they print on ragged-edged paper?).
Judging by the model shot, we think this Whistles dress(?? 40) may be stretching the definition a little - ISN 't it just a long top? - But, nevertheless, we are very similar to the band and pocket. In the meantime, if you want to fashion a nod in the direction of Wimbledon, this dress Gant (?? 69) perfect - simple white vest-style jersey and cotton skirt, it can be accessorised to the maximum for a more chic look or wear with simple sandals for "that junk" "look.
But if you want to make a statement, this amazing print dress from Rianne De Witte Adili really caught the eye FS '. We want. And one more a bold statement can be found by - where else? - The ASOs, where we saw this amazing jersery stag cotton dress (£36).
If all this jersey isn't enough for you - or indeed if it's too much for you - you could always accessorise with a jersey necklace - we've fallen a bit in love with this simple necklace (£20.40) at fashion-conscience.com.
Fashionista WEEK
Naomi Watts
Fashion cemetery
Victoria Beckham
Remember that brief, golden period when Victoria Beckham wore flat shoes? We swear she actually looked happier. Perhaps that's the answer to eternal pouting mystery: it's not a pout, it's the self-inflicted pain of stupidly high heels. This outfit is about as relaxed and laid-back cool as your average Bullingdon Club social event. Yawn.
Quote of the week
Or perhaps Anti-Quote of the Week, from new Britain's Top Model judge Julien Macdonald:
You can't have a plus-size girl winning - it makes it a joke. It's not fair on them - you're setting them up for a fall. They are looked down on, they're frowned upon. A catwalk model is a size six to eight. If you're a size 14 in a room full of size eights, you're in the wrong room.
How about you do this the right room, it? Damn it, we know who would be able to able to change it. Yes, we know, may be a fashion designer?
OUT AND ABOUT
Feeling in need of a cocktail? FS frequently feels that way, and has recently been researching the most stylish ones - my God, is there NOTHING we won't do for you readers? We recommend, then, that you head to the Brumus bar at the Haymarket Hotel for the Chambord Cocktails and Cupcakes menu. Alcohol and cake - all your major food groups. Brumus Bar, Haymarket Hotel, 1 Suffolk Place, London SW1Y 4BP; 020 7470 4007.
On the lookout for the next step? Richard Young Gallery and the London College of Fashion are presenting Capsule#2, an exhibition of work by forthcoming 2010 graduates from the College's BA in fashion photography. Runs until Friday 13 August, Richard Young Gallery, 4 Holland Street, London W8 4LT.
Ethical footwear company Terra Plana currently has a pop-up shop gracing London's fashionable King's Road. Perfect for picking up some summer sandals to go with your new jersey dress. 36 King's Road, London, SW3 4UD 020 7581 5764.
If you are near Bristol, the Harbour Festival (30 July - 1 August) is worth marking in your diary. There's music, dance, a food market, a children's area, interative live theatre and much more. More details at bristolharbourfestival.co.uk.
SHOPPING NEWS
This week is National Breastfeeding week, and Frugi is celebrating with some lovely organic cotton nursingwear at 30% off. Grab a bargain at welovefrugi.com.
And speaking of babies, Green Baby has a great 20% off deal today only (apparently something to do with some football tournament somewhere?) - just enter WORLDCUP at the checkout at greenbaby.com. Pick up a summery jersey dress for someone much cuter than you ...
Following on from our recent ethical jewellery special, FS has come across another ethical jewellery label. Jersey Pearl, a third-generation British business, has also become the first carbon-neutral pearl brand in the UK. You can view the collections at jerseypearl.com.
OFFCUTS
Check out the best pieces from the Fin Feline ethical range, new at Asos.
Simon Chilvers celebrates 20 years of Dolce Gabbana and menswear.
Kate Carter picks the best ethical kids' clothes at the Bubble London show.
For all the latest fashion news, visit guardian.co.uk/fashion
News to tell us? Email kate.carter@guardian.co.uk
Follow us at Twitter
• Capello insists England can reach World Cup final
• Explore the Fans' Network: read what the world is saying
• Relive the action with our Twitter replay interactive
• In pictures: galleries of the best action in South Africa
• Email sean.ingle @ guardian.co.uk from where you LL 'watch
11.25am: Japan coach Takeshi Okada is worried about Nicklas Bendtner when his side faces Denmark tomorrow, claiming: "I think Bendtner will be the key man in their attack. However Denmark coach Morten Olsen, a man who I certainly wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of, suggests that his striker is "doubtful" for the match - although he is "incredibly optimistic" his side can win through.
11:18 am: So how many of you don't want England to win today? Plenty, judging by my inbox: "I'm a Football fan and I'm English but have to say I'll enjoy the World Cup far more when I can finally stop listening to the half-baked opinions of England's part-time fans," says Ben Smith. "I think what really annoys me is that so many England "fans" are overly optimistic with their face paints and cheap flags until the team inevitably doesn't live up to these inflated expectations at which point they are labelled as 'rubbish and overpaid anyway'.
By the way, is anyone reading Why waste England and other curious phenomena explained Simon Cooper and Stefan Szymanski? According to the authors - who use multiple regression to compare each country 's performances, based on the population, wealth and experience - England actually perform slightly better than you might expect.
11:12 am: Argentina captain Javier Mascherano believes his side's top-heavy attack won't necessarily be a problem in the knockout stages. "Many think we remain unbalanced but that's also a benefit for us because if you put four or five players in the top half of the field your rivals have to defend with more men and will attack you less," Mascherano said. Mascherano also claimed that the only goal Argentina have conceded so far, after a mistake from Martin Demichelis against South Korea, can be "blamed on the vuvuzelas," because Demichelis did not hear shouts telling him he had a Korean on his back.
11.05am: Meanwhile your emails are tumbling in. Simon Foster says/l "As an English office worker, I've very happy to report that our boss is taking us to the pub at 2.30pm, which is very nice of him (even nicer if he's buying!). We've even got a special World Cup offer on our website so all the staff (even the Americans) will be cheering on the lads. Christopher Millross says: "I'll be skiving but only whilst still in the office as our boss is a power-crazed inadequacy-riddled fool who can't bare to think he's not in control for ninety minutes." Anyone else?
11am: Here's what fans around the world make of England
10.52am: A selection of your comments from below the line:
henryt: "England will be lucky not to go home tomorrow. Terry should be sacked. It would be better to have a team of unknowns who try to win than these spoiled babies who would sooner be elsewhere, resting up for the next gruelling Premier League season."
billysbar:
molefromtheministry: - "Here's a piece of information that might be revealing regarding the quality of Uruguay: Jorge Martinez, 27, for whose services Juventus have recently offered Catania the royal sum of 16 million Euros, was not considered good enough to be picked for their squad. They have a population less than half of London's. They're undefeated. They haven't conceded. They have the only active player to win the ESM Golden Shoe twice. They're England's likely quarter-final opponents (should Capello's men get that far).
10.45am: So, two questions:
1) Are any office-based readers either a) being allowed to getting out of work to watch the England (or indeed USA) match, or b) planning to skive off this afternoon? If there, please post below or email me at the address above.
2) Are there any English readers secretly hoping that Fabio Capello's team go out after grinding another dull draw today, so we can all forget about the grim fandango of the No Surrender brigade, St George bowler hats, ridiculous front page tabloid covers and all sorts of other England-related embarrassments for a couple of years?
10.40am: Meanwhile this from the Guardian's football correspondent Kevin McCarra
Capello's inscrutable when you try to work out his thoughts on team selection. None the less, there is a lot of talk about Joe Cole continuing to be left out. It's puzzling since Capello himself emphasised a few weeks ago that Cole is fitter and fresher than most players because he missed a fair bit of the season through injury. It would be disturbing if he continued to be left on the bench just so the manager could prove he is indifferent to public/media opinion. I think we already know Capello is his own man. Any way, I feel sorry for Cole so far.
10.35am: Fifa will not take action against David Villa after he raised his hand to the face of Honduras's Emilo Izaguirre on Monday. Fifa spokesman Pekka Odriozola says its disciplinary committee found no grounds to open a case.
10.30am: There are still nine hours to go until Germany v Ghana kicks off, but the media centre in Soccer City most have 150-plus journalists in it already. The food in these places is sub-school dinner - generally some sickly grey meat with a 'starch of the day' - but Soccer City is the cordon bleu of media centres by virtue of the fact it has a McCafe. I've come armed with about two dozen pieces of fruit ...
10:25 am: \\ "Two good omens (or urban legends, if you want!) To date," says Paul Hayes. "England play better on the BBC in England to play better in the red. Not sure about the red pants idea, but ..." In fact, 's been estimated that Britain received 62% of their games on the Beeb and only 30% in ITV, and, as Marina Hyde said today , they've even lost six of the eight games when Clive Tyldesley has been commentating.
10.17am: Just a quick reminder that you can still sign up now and play daily competitions with our Fantasy Football game, the most exciting of its kind on the web. Oh, it's free too.
10.15am: While the fall-out from France's early exit continues apace, the fall-out from their failure to even reach the tournament in 1994 ... continues apace. David Ginola has threatened to sue Gérard Houllier after the former France manager once again blamed him for Les Bleus ' failure to make the trip to the USA.
\\ "It 'Enough!" Until my death, they would talk to me about it! "Bog Ginola. "This affects my personal life, my children, it affects a lot of things, it 's unbearable. Now that' enough. I 'm so tired ... I have decided to charge."
10.10am: Barry Glendenning's paper view has arrived to round up the Fourth Estate's perspective this morning:
10.05am: "I think Yakubu's miss was definately worse - the ball wasn't even bobbling!" declares Calum Johnston. "Plus I'm Scottish, so I'll take the opportunity to thank you for bringing up Iwelumo's miss!"
England fans, meanwhile, will be able to sun themselves at Glastonbury's Pyramid Stage later today and take in England v Slovenia on its big screens. Should they win today, their second-round match will also be screened at the festival, albeit not at the Pyramid Stage. A spokesman said no other games from the World Cup are due to be shown during the festival.
9.55am: "Yakubu's miss last night was epic," writes Mike Wilner. "Afterward, he stood rooted to the spot with a grin on his face. I had the impression that he wanted to blame someone, but there was no one else remotely at fault." No doubt about that, but was it worse than this?
9.50am: Sad news from South Korea where, according to AP, a man has drowned after jumping into a river to celebrate the national team's progress to the last 16.
9:40 am: If you haven't seen Yakubu's miss for Nigeria against South Korea last night (sorry, Nigeria fans) ...
9.25am: I'm currently making the drive to Soccer City, where I'll be reporting on Germany v Ghana later today. The match is intriguing for all sorts of reasons - Germany could go out in the group stages for the first time ever in World Cups, Ghana are probably Africa's best hope of getting a team into the last 16 and history is also likely to be made as the Boateng brothers - Kevin-Prince of Ghana and Germany's Jerome â€" become the first siblings to line-up against each other in a full international.
9:10 in the morning: This from our sports news correspondent Owen Gibson, via Twitter: "A nervous looking David Baddiel and Frank Skinner on our flight to Port Elizabeth. England coming home? Let's hope not."
9.05am: And there's more:
• France Football: "Easily beaten by a very modest South African team, Les Bleus left the tournament by the same way they came in: by the back door. After spending the weekend playing at being trade unionists and special agents, they forgot to play football. Physically and psychologically unprepared, they simply couldn't put one foot in front of the other."
• Le Monde: "France are out … the World Cup has lost its jesters. For the first time in Frnehc history, the public and the players greet an exit with relief. Jean-Paul Sartre wrote that "in football, everything is complicated by the presence of an opponent" but this French team showed you don't necessarily need an opponent â€" they were able to sabotage themselves. To all the questions that teams are asked in this sort of tournament, Les Bleus â€" the players, the staff and the FFF â€" gave the wrong answers, and ended up in a total fiasco … ... We must turn the page. Or rather, rip it out."
• Le Parisien: "Pitiful, ridiculous, shameful … it's hard to find the words to describe this France team in this World Cup. South Africa were hyperactive despite their limited ability, while France were without desire, answers or a clue. When it comes to identifying those responsible for this fiasco, the list is almost endless. But Raymond Domenech tops it … with his incoherent selections, inability to mould a group and publicity skills that make him one of the most unpopular men in the country, the manager leaves his post after six years with one highlight â€" a World Cup final appearance in 2006 for which stalwarts such as Zidane, Vieira and Makele deserve more credit that him ….. Laurent Blanc will
arrive in a few days on to a field of ruins. What a waste."
9am: Anyway, it's not all about England. Here's some of the reaction in France to the national team's humiliating exit yesterday. And 's not much.
• Libération's front page reads "And again bravo!" followed by "Beaten 2-1 by the South Africans, Les Bleus are out of the World Cup. The tragi-comedy is finally over".
• L'Equipe's headline, "The end of a world" leads into a plea for the French government "to go to the end of their powers so that the FFF (French Football Federation) is not any more in the hands of dummies".
• Sud-Ouest declared its delight in the misery being over at last: "Rarely would defeat have been welcomed with so much relief. It would have been better if Les Bleus had never gone to South Africa."
• "It's over and so much the better," cheerd La Provence. "Calamitous on the pitch like off it, Les Bleus have to move on to rebuilding."
• Le Progrès didn't mince its words: "Bye dummies!"
• And Le Journal de la Haute-Marne was almost as dismissive: "Failing to give good performances on the pitch, the French players still achieved a good feat: becoming the laughing stock of the entire world."
8.50am: ... and making some very interesting points about the Jabulani. "Listen the pitch and the ball are for both teams, but there's one specific issue: both teams don't have the same feet, so who is really affected by how the ball pitches and rolls across the grass? We have lots of former players inside Fifa â€" Platini, Pele, Beckenbauer - who should concentrate on making a ball that really helps the players. This ball goes round the corner. If you want to kick the ball to the second post it just drops. It just wobbles from left to right and we're not going to see any good moves at this World Cup that's just the way it is."
8.46am: ... Rightly pointing out that most journalists had written off his team before this tournament "I think we're right now showing what we are able to do. Many of you were saying things. You were wrong, really wrong. Because there was also sometimes a lack of respect towards the players. I really believe now that the journalists who wrote this nonsense should apologise to the players. They are making our country proud and we are defending the colours of the country of Argentina" ...
8.42am:
8.37am: Still, it was worth it to watch Leo Messi in action and to hear Diego Maradona hold court afterwards. It's hard not to get sucked in by the kiddish enthusiasm around this Argentina team and among the supporterss - but while I'd love to see the Albiceleste go all the way, surely any defence with Jonas Guttierez at right-back will be found out at some point?
8.30am: Forgive me, by the way, if this live blog flags at any point in the next eight hours. I was in Polokwane last night to watch Argentina beat Greece and I didn't get back until 3.45am this morning.
8:25 am: And what of 'Plucky' Slovenia, to give them their official tabloid title? I've seen both their matches at this World Cup in the flesh, shot the breeze with many of their tiny press pack - just 15 print journalists and five web reporters - written several pieces on the team (including 1,400 words for last Sunday's Observer) and it wouldn't shock me at all if they got a result today. They're technically better than England and certainly more together as a team. They struggled against the USA, however, when the tempo was pushed up to Premier League levels. It seems crude to suggest England should roll back the clock and pump balls into the box, Graham Taylor style, but that's what seemed to trouble the Slovenes last Friday ...
8.15am: The bookies, of course, make England eyewatering huge favourites to win. Then again, they almost always do. But does Steven Gerrard sound like a confident man to you? "The fear of not winning drives you on," he said yesterday. "The last thing you want is to go home after the group stage. We've come here to stay in this tournament
to the end and it would be an absolute disaster for the players home after the group stage. I admit that on paper, we again 'massive favorites. They re 'small nation compared to us, but only need to do. The pressure on us, because we need to win the game. "
8am: so, decision time ... Imagine it's you wearing Fabio Capello's black Zerorh glasses, gazing downwards at England's squad sheet. Who do you start with? What formation do you play? According to Dominic Fifield, Capello is considering making three changes, with Jermain Defoe partnering Wayne Rooney, Matthew Upson slotting alongside John Terry and James Milner on the right of midfield. And, yes, that means no place for Joe Cole.
Welcome to guardian.co.uk 's daily live World Cup blog, where you are in the world ... Our hope is that this blog will provide all of the following: breaking news, predictions, pontifications, colour from our 13-strong team in South Africa, plus lots of pointing outwards; to your comments below the line, to the best things we'ven seen on the web, to various World Cup randomania.
Our plan is to update the blog from from 8am-6pm UK time, however the posts will come faster between 9am until around midday, when our minute-by-minute reports will kick-in.
As there's no point in duplication from that point on, we'll ease off slightly after that, posting the best bits of the minute-by-minutes, and bring you updates from our writers in South Africa and Fans' Network members across the globe.
Today '", because if you have to say: England v Slovenia and USA v Algeria from 3pm, followed by Germany v Ghana and Serbia v Australia at 7.30pm.
• Follow Switzerland v Chile live with John Ashdown.
• Read Rob Smyth's mbm report of Portugal 7-0 N Korea
• Follow Sean Ingle on Twitter
• Relive the action with our Twitter replay
• In pictures: Galleries of the best action in South Africa
4.19pm: Pavlos Joseph, the England fan who pitched up in England's changing room after their draw with Algeria, will face trial on Friday after making an appearance at a World cup court today. Get the full story from David Smith here.
4.05pm Afternoon all, Paolo Bandini subbing in for Sean. Diego Maradona, for no obvious reason but probably because some hack who just can't let go decided to dredge up his 'hand of God' goal again, has announced to the world that LuÃs Fabiano did a "double handball" before scoring his second goal against Ivory Coast. "[Fabiano's goal] was with his arm, he brought it down with his arm," insisted El Pibe de Oro. No word yet as to whether he can also confirm that rain is wet.
3:45 pm: That's it from me for today - have 1,000 words to write for tomorrow's paper so time to get cracking. Thanks for all your your posts and emails, and for now back to the team in London. Cheers, Sean
3.40pm: Danny Taylor's verdict on Behrani's sending off:
That red card happened right beneath me. Yes, his arms were flailing, but Vidal's acting and faux agony was embarrassing
Personally think another argument in favour of video evidence is that it would stop the fakers: where is the incentive to dive or collapse in a heap pretending you've been elbowed if, within 20 seconds, you could be booked for cheating.
3:34 pm: Switzerland, up to 10 people - Behrami was sent off for putting his hand towards the face of the form ", as he held it. Personally, I think that 's funny - his arm was high, and perhaps justifiably booking but in comparison with spines of the gears that break up and destroy careers, that there was nothing ...
3:25 am: It's still 0-0 in Switzerland v Chile. As 2010MisterChip points out
Switzerland have not conceded a #WorldCup goal for the last 501 minutes. It's the second longest streak ever in WC history #SUI #CHI
3.10pm: Chile are on top in the early stages against Switzerland. Meanwhile zonalmarking.net's tactical breakdown of Portugal v North Korea is well worth reading.
2.55pm:Speaking of Switzerland, Chile, V, you can follow all the action with John Ashdown 's live minute-by-minute report .
2.46pm: The South African presenter on SS3's coverage of Chile v Switzerland has just described as the Swiss as having "one of the toughest defences in World Cup history". A touch premature, perhaps?
2.40pm: A few of your posts from below the line:
rmstrongx15 - "Looking very much like a rout for the army team of the Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea against the capitalist decadents' of Western Iberia. I hope the Dear Leader will have understanding for his lads, they certainly gave all they had. I blame the capitalist anti gravity ball, designed by Fifa & NASA scientists, who do not want to go to bed by the light of a communist moon or see a second round of socialist 'Ambush Marketing' by professional Chinese DPRK fans."
Algebraist - "Fifa is hoisting its own petard with the opposition to Video Replay technology. It's inherently stupid to be that complacent about the 'nature' of the game when every World Cup brings a shift in video technology that breaks down each decision into milliseconds. The slow-motion cameras installed at ever venue and the propensity of SABC to show off with slow motion clips of everything that they can possibly get away with should be enough for FIFA to reconsider it's strategy. After all, you can actually see the infringements in glorious High Definition around four or five times, as soon as it happens. Eventually, you're just going to have to give up and try to integrate the technology."
HankVanTek- "Video replay would be much faster than 2 minutes of pantomime, which was held last night - and we would see the right decisions, as well. I can 't blame FIFA does not want to use video replays, because they to be clipped with a bonus Sepp 'and buy a few screens. "
2:33 pm: This from my colleague Danny Taylor:
Security not great in Port Elizabeth. Chile v Switzerland my 3rd game here and not had to show my ticket once. England here next.
2.24pm: That's it, Portugal have won 7-0 to almost certainly book their place in the last 16. You wonder what the authorities in Pyongyang are making of North Korea's biggest ever defeat in international football ... and the decision to show the game live. Wouldn't want to be the fellow who made that right now ...
2:18 pm: And Tiago has just made it 7-0, which means that the Ivory Coast are - barring a miracle - almost certainly out of this World Cup. Meanwhile this from my Guardian colleague Paul MacInnes:
My advice to #PRK players: dress up as a woman and do a runner while you can
2.16pm: There's a broad beam across Cristiano Ronaldo's face, and with good reason: he's just scored his first goal in international football for two years to put Portugal six-nil up.
2.14pm: It's Portugal 5-0 North Korea. The last time Portugal scored five in a World Cup was in 1966 ... against North Korea.
2:05 pm:
1:51 pm: Ronaldo crosses to Tiago, who makes it 4-0 to Portugal ... I wonder if the authorities in North Korea will cut the signal to the live feed?
1.47pm: Portugal have just scored twice in three minutes, the second a lovely diving header from Hugo Almeida, to go 3-0 ahead against North Korea.
1.45pm: Diego Maradona has had his say on Luis Fabiano's double-handballed goal against Ivory Coast last night. "What's tragicomic is the referee's smile afterwards!" he told reporters today. When I scored the goal against England, I didn't see the referee laugh. He had so many doubts, he looked at his linesmen, there was no fourth referee at that time, he looked at the crowd to see if they gave him a hand. But yesterday, the referee went laughing and that's what shocked us all. So if you saw it why didn't you penalise it?"
Maradona is Argentina side playing Greece in the future Polokwane - match I 'm lucky to go - says Brazil are still the team to beat. "Brazil did not play well, but they settle their matches, and therefore they remain the favorites," he said.
1:38 pm: Even archbishop Desmond Tutu has put the boot into England, calling their performance so far as "perfectly abysmal". Speaking in Cape Town, the Nobel Peace Laureate said: "I had David Beckham here the other day and I told him of our fears. And David Beckham said: 'You know what, a football match is 90 minutes long. Anything can happen. South Africa has already won as it is hosting this World Cup.' And he's right, you know. Remember what has happened to England, Spain, France and Italy. All former winners, all have had perfectly abysmal games. We shouldn't be feeling too bad."
1.30pm: Apologies for the scratchy nature of the updates, by the way. Partly it's because we expect most of you will be reading Rob Smyth's minute-by-minute reportbut it 's because the internet in my apartment, like a drunk walking home from the pub: the slow, uncertain, and may fall over at any moment.
1.20pm: It's Portugal 1-0 North Korea at half-time.
1.12pm: Portugal are still pressing. Meanwhile this from my colleague Kevin McCarra:
Now that I think about it, Frank Lampard was bound to be used as the antidote to incendiary John Terry at today's press conference. They are opposite poles for club and country in some respects, yet there is a bond between the public schoolboy and a team-mate with a grittier kind of education. If England start playing better it will because their different qualities are at last seen on the pitch instead of being confined to the airwaves.
1.06pm: Hello again from Sean Ingle in Johannesburg. Portugal have scored the first goal in Cape Town in this World Cup, and lead North Korea 1-0 in what is a surprisingly open game.
12.44pm: Penny and Gregg sounds like a children's television programme doesn't it? Anyway, I digress. Portugal v North Korea has got off to cracking start with the Koreans really giving it a go against Ronaldo and co. You can follow the match with Rob Smyth's minute-by-minute report right here. GR
12.13pm:Hello from Penny and Gregg London. Like Australians And you will not have enough to worry about, Herald Sun published a video of the upper '\\' songs played on vuvuzela . Ear-screechingly bad. PW
11.55am:It 's it for me now. Mail and Guardian in Burg Joe 'very kindly allowed me to use their offices but there are no screens around, and there sa game' to view. I LL 'will come back soon with updates, providing the Internet in their work apartment, but now it' s to my colleagues in London. Thank you for all your letters and Tweets. Best, Sean
11.50am: This from the BBC's James Pearce:
Breaking: Capello has told BBC that Upson will start #England match v Slovenia in place of suspended Carragher #worldcup
11.48am: Meanwhile there's an interesting comment from Graeme Souness on RTE about the effects of altitude and why England will be at their lowest ebb against Slovenia.
11.45am
11.36am: My colleague Danny Taylor's verdict on Lampard's press conference:
Very impressive performance from Frank Lampard in a difficult press conf. Handled it impeccably. Honest, open and eloquent #eng #worldcup
11.31am:
11.27am:
11.22am: Scrub that last post. According to the Associated Press, North Korea state television has confirmed it will show live coverage of today's World Cup match against Portugal in what is believed to be a first for a North Korean football team's match taking place abroad.
11.18am: Meanwhile there's an interesting piece on what football is like North Korea on the Channel 4 News website.
Football is never televised live in the DPRK. Games are generally shown one or two days later at prime time on the state TV channel. Thus far in this world cup highlights packages of all the games - except the South Korea v Greece match - have been shown on the state TV channel. And on the evening of 16 June, one day after the rest of the world had watched the national team's heroics, the people of North Korea watched as their team struggled valiantly against the top ranked team in the world.
11.12am: If you're interested in finding out what it's like to be a fan travelling around South Africa, the excellent European Football Weekends blog is carrying a journal from Tim Stewart which is well worth a read.
The experience starts off badly ...
"Matchday 1: South Africa-Mexico. I set off from Sandton, an affluent suburb of JoBurg at 10am. There were no signs for Soccer City or any stewards/info/anything else World Cup-related despite it being the terminus for anyone arriving in JoBurg from the airport. I eventually found a shuttle bus supposed to take 30mins to the official stadium park and ride bus/Metrorail train. The freeway was totally gridlocked and we spent three hours on it. The Metrorail train did not move for an hour and then stopped for another 30 mins just outside Soccer City. Arrived at 3pm - five hours after setting off, missing the entire opening ceremony along with tens of thousands of others.The opening game had an attendance of only 85,000 when capacity was 97,000.
... but soon Tim finds that ...
I'm a much happier bunny after putting the early transport horror shows behind me and taking in the Holland, Brazil and Argentina games in the past few days. Factor into that seeing real-life North Koreans and partying in Soweto and all is looking up.
As I said, it's worth a read - as is the entire site.
11.05am: Meanwhile below the line ALittleLebowski makes an interesting point:
Slovenia have won as many games in the tournament as England, Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, and Germany. Combined. So have Japan. Is European football in trouble? Fair enough there's probably a higher concentration of quality within the S American sides who've qualified (two potential winners, two who look at least capable of getting to the quarters, and one who should get out their group at least) but every single European team has looked bad in one way or another. Even the Netherlands with maximum points have not played with anything like the verve you'd expect from them. Germany looked good for one game, but were brought crashing back to earth after playing a side who were nothing more than disciplined. Spain couldn't break down a disciplined Switzerland. Portugal with the most expensive player in the world couldn't break down a disciplined Ivory Coast.
11 am: This from my colleague Dominic Fifield:
Unhappy #Fra players skulking across the training pitch with their hands in their pockets. They'll probably go and win the #worldcup now...
10.53am:German Wolfgang Stark will be refereeing England V Slovenia on Wednesday. His assistants will be Jan-Hendrik Salver and Mike Pickel, as well as from Germany.
10.48am:Meanwhile, a letter from Sukaina in South Africa:
\\ "Am having breakfast in Cape Town Waterfront before the game Portugal-Korea. No Korea, fans will see billions of Portuguese. There 'are not things of Korea to buy here, even branded vuvuzela ... shame."
10:43 am: Good news for Italy, Andrea Pirlo returned to the learning process.
10.38am: Meanwhile here's a very nice piece by ESPN senior sportswriter Jeff Bradley on watching his nephew, Michael, score the equaliser against Slovenia on Friday night. His brother is also the US coach Bob Bradley ... so you can understand why he was emotional:
Since the purpose of Donovan "I started screaming" boys C 'Mon! "I knocked on the seat in front of me. Hard. Yes, in fact, not things a journalist should do.
I don't remember much of the next 38 minutes, only that I looked at my watch a lot and felt a pit in my stomach, and a huge lump building in my throat. I was rationalizing a little. At least they didn't give up. At least they showed some heart. It's only a game. And then, I saw Donovan right in front of me. He was lofting a pass into the box. I saw someone (it was Jozy Altidore) win a header and send it back across.
And I saw No. 4. Then I saw the ball hit the net. The game was tied 2-2, and I was jumping up and down and pounding the seat some more. And I could feel tears rolling down my cheeks.
10.30am: Below the line, NOTColumba writes: "Brazil looked ominous, but by 'eck are they a bunch of filthy cheats. Snide fouls, rolling around like they've been shot, handballs. Keita's bit of acting was pretty low and should have seen him booked at the least and will probably land him with a ban - but my question is this: If the ref thought that Kaka HAD elbowed Keita, then why was it only a booking - surely it should have been a straight red. A close friend of mine (not that close) recently suggested that Brazil get 50% off any punishment because they are Brazil - this seems to back up his theory."
There's a referees' conference starting shortly in Jo'Burg and Fifa has promised us that every official in the World Cup will be attending, so maybe he will explain his decision last night. Am particularly looking forward to hear why Mali referee Koman Coulibaly denied Maurice Edu's 'goal' against Slovenia on Friday. As for your Brazil point, you're right about the way they're prepared to embrace football's darker arts: against Ivory Coast they conceded 17 free-kicks, most of them - as Brian Homewood from Reuters points out - minor trips or pushes around 30 metres from their own goal which are not enough to earn the perpetrators a yellow card, yet do the job of breaking up dangerous opposition attacks.
As Felipe Melo puts it: "If I have to commit a foul, I will. If I have to get a yellow card, I will. It's better than conceding a goal."
10.23am: Arjen Robben will be allowed to decide when he's fit enough to play again, according to Holland boss Bert van Marwijk. "I am going to leave him to make the decision," said Van Marwijk. "He knows his own body best and he will let me know when he is ready. It can be in the next game or it can be in the knockout phase. He must take the decision. I'd prefer that he is used only when he is fit."
10.15am: Incidentally, Fabian Moritz, who creates our brick-by-brick football coverage tells us: "It's crazy everything thats going on over here. I'm getting enquiries from Holland, Denmark, USA, Japan, Sweden, Switzerland, France, Germany and England. Last week there was even a live interview with CNN by webcam - and that with my English! I had two TV crews here, at 8am one from Germany, at 11am one from Holland, my calendar is packed at the moment!"
10:10 am: Our brick-by-brick highlights of England v US went viral, and had over one millions downloads. Here's Friday's England v Algeria game, lovingly recreated including Wayne Rooney berating the fans.
10am: Reuters has gathered up the French press's reaction to yesterday's extraordinary boycott of their training session by the France team - and, as you might expect, they don't hold back ..
L'EQUIPE
Le Parisien - "Everyday, 'les Bleus' push back the frontiers of the unacceptable ... This band of spoilt children, left free to do what they like by their entire hierarchy, has no limit, no sense of duty so close to the match against South Africa. To have the worst soccer team at the World Cup was already unbearable. To also have the most stupid is intolerable ... The mutiny at Knysna will forever remain the Waterloo of French soccer."
LE FIGARO - "It is collective suicide ... the French team has heaped ridicule on itself in front of the whole world yesterday at Knysna. The 'field of dreams' became the set of a living nightmare. It was almost hallucinatory. This is a psychodrama that will go down in the history of the World Cup. The French team has been reduced to ashes."
LIBERATION - "If this charade has a guilty partner (Nicolas Anelka), and culprits (all those 'striking' players who do not merit their salary, nor the chance to ply the profession that they dreamt of doing as children), there is also someone who is responsible for all this: the coach of the French soccer team. We take them to be role models for kids who have lost their way in life, but in reality they are just bling-bling traders for a sport which yesterday lost a lot of credit in France."
LE PROGRES DE LYON - "They should have contented themselves with being bad on the pitch and arrogant off it as they already have been for a few years. Honestly, they amaze us ... (no doubt) they can do even worse."
LES DERNIERES NOUVELLES D'ALSACE- "In a sense, France has already made a success of the 2010 History of the World Cup I remember only two teams from this World Cup: that the winning country, and possibly France ... '[Les Bleus' show] great skill of an international scandal. "triumph" "
VOSGES MATIN - "Too much is too much! The spectacle made by this team of multi-millionaires is a disgrace to all French people."
LA REPUBLIQUE DU CENTRE - "We are no longer in the presence of nasty brats ... but of professional sportsmen not worthy of wearing the French national colours."
FRANCE SOIR - "Clearly nothing can be expected of 'Les Bleus'. Their achievements are shameful: France is the laughing stock of the world."
9.53am: According to The Star newspaper in South Africa there has been, to quote their headline, "No 'boom boom' for Joburgs sex workers' during this World Cup.
Sex workers hoping to turn a quick buck when thousands of horny soccer fans descended on the city for the World Cup say they have been disappointed. And while some upmarket strip clubs say business has been good, others have been forced to cancel shows. Even metered taxi drivers delivering girls to tourists say business has died down.
In the months leading up to the World Cup, there was mounting expectation that prostitution would peak. Reports suggested that up to 40 000 sex workers would be brought into the country to satisfy demand.
One sex worker, in her seventh year on the streets, said the tourists were "boring". "We have not had any luck. I usually make R4 500 a month. I was hoping I would cash in R15 000, but it has been quiet. Guys would rather watch soccer. I am counting down the days until the end."
9.45am: Good stat from Twitter: Didier Drogba offered very little to his side. He made just three successful passes in the entire match.
9.40am:This is Ben Lyttleton, a French expert football
Le Buteur: #ALG can qualify, and will go for the win v #USA. Set to play 3 up front in 3-4-3, Djebbour, Matmour and Ziani
9.35am: Some good points being made below the line:
codfather11 writes: Chronic underachievers hire a serial winner with arguably the best CV in world football ... His job is to coach the chronic underachievers to World Cup glory. The serial winner turns round the fortunes of the chronic underachievers to the point where they qualify having scored more goals than any other European team in the qualifying round. They reach the World Cup and the pressure gets to the chronic underachievers ... who turn round and say the reason ... is down to the methods of the serial winner ... the media now want to get rid of the serial winner and return to the methods endorsed by the serial losers that have led to years and years of embarrassment, underachievement and ridicule. Welcome to Team England."
abigsmurf says: "A player attempts to be honest with the press and gives an honest opinion of the shortcomings of the team and what needs to be done (and is being done) and he gets pilloried for it. Perhaps Rooney was onto something when he let rip at the end of the last match. We, as England fans have the cheek to call ourselves loyal supporters? This reaction only goes to show that we're getting exactly the team performance we deserve."
Finally, as BigJohnSmurfpoints out, "a report on the African teams, bears comparison with a combined record of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain ... PLD October, W1, D6 L3, F7, A7"
9.26am: Didier Drogba has been speaking about his side's 3-1 defeat against Ivory Coast last night. "The game showed the difference between a team that can go all the way and win the World Cup and a team still working its way up," he said. "It was a big disappointment, we had our chances and it could have been a different match. But we have to also be realistic. You know where the Ivory Coast is on the rankings compared to Brazil. We never went into the game thinking we would run away with it."
9.20am: It would be remiss of me not to plug the latest edition of our World Cup Daily podcast with James Richardsom, Which addresses many topics, we 've talked about today. Also in Friday night 'podcast , which, for the first time, was filmed before a live and very refreshed studio audience.
9.15am: Meanwhile this from the Nigerian football writer Colin Udoh:
Sulley Muntari could be heading home after ordered with # Gha squad for Milovan Rajevac
9.10am: Speaking of Brazil v South Africa ... surely the decision to allow Luis Fabiano's second goal, even though he handballed twice before shooting, and the shameful hands-to-face dive of Kader Keita to get Kaka sent off, again highlights the ridiculousness of Fifa's fingers-in-ears decision not to even contemplate video replays? I know there are issues with the game becoming stop-start, and how exactly it video evidence would be applied, but last night we knew within five seconds that both decisions were huge bungling errors. At least if coaches were allowed three challenges a game, as in tennis, it would eliminate such game-changing blunders ...
9am: Meanwhile in South Africa, the big story is the dire performance of the African teams at this World Cup which currently stands at played 12, won one, drawn four, lost seven, goals for six, goals conceded 15. That's seven points out of a possible 30. It's worth stating just how much South Africans are behind every African team here - I was in Pretoria on Saturday night for Cameroon v Denmark, and 95% of the crowd were supporting Paul Le Guen's - or should that be Samuel Eto'o? - side. Last night I watched Brazil v Ivory Coast in a bar and it was the same: silence broken only by tuts for the Brazil goals, wild applause and cheering when Didier Drogba scored a consolation ...
8:50 am: In Italy, meanwhile, the papers are more gloomy than hysterical following the Azzurri's 1-1 draw with New Zealand. "Italy flop! Now there's the risk of coming home," is the headline on La Repubblica's front page, with Gianni Mura commenting inside: "It's a really poor result, more than disappointing. I would say chilling." Corriere della Sera, meanwhile, suggests this is "an Italy without quality," an analyses the "long decline of a great captain," Fabio Cannavaro.
8.40am: But to concentrate solely on England would do a wilful disservice to all the other goings on at the World Cup. Certainly John Terry's minor powerplay was far less dramatic than France rebellion full-on rebellion against Raymond Domenech yesterday. As Tom Williams, from Agence France-Press tweets this morning, L'Equipe are scathing when it comes to the players' refusal to train:
L'Equipe: Patrice Evra incapable as captain, Raymond Domenech "a puppet", FFF president Jean-Pierre Escalettes "an amateur"."How could [Evra] confuse the France captaincy with the captaincy of a team of boy scouts?" Evra "blinded, eaten by the pressure". Poll: 81 percent of L'Equipe readers supported FFF decision to exclude Nicolas Anelka. 68,164 voters.
Meanwhile France president Nicolas Sarkozy, has asked his sports minister Roselyne Bachelot to meet with the key people involved in the bitter national team row which has wrecked their World Cup chances. Bachelot told TFI television: "We are taking note of the indignation of the French people and...calling for dignity and responsibility."
8.30am:Meanwhile, the rest English sportspages are anatomical yesterday 's events with the wild excitement of the student's scalpel, and let them die on a dead mouse in year 6 science. Bob Smith View paper ' picks over the best bits:
In the Daily Mirror, Oliver Holt outlines the levels of almost inhuman brutality that Capello has inflicted upon England's finest. "[The players] told [James Milner] that the food was miserable and bland, that there was not enough of it and that most players sneaked a few extras in to relieve the monotony. There were other occasions under Capello when players got so desperate for some variety in their diet that they arranged for surreptitious fast-food deliveries to be made to the team hotel," he wrote, demonstrating the sacrifices these consummate professionals are only too willing to make in order to win the World Cup.
"The point is that when England's players were only away from their homes and their clubs for a short period, they could deal with the bleak austerity that Capello imposed on them. They could laugh together at their prison conditions and have some harmless fun trying to bend the rules. They could get by on gallows humour. It also helped that they were winning matches under Capello in their World Cup qualifying campaign.
In the Daily Telegraph, Henry Winter described yesterday as "one of the most dramatic days in England's history", and called John Terry "a rebel with a cause". He added: "The gloves are off. Terry can be accused of telling tales out of school, and certain players are known to be unhappy with his release of dressing-room secrets, but the stakes are so high going into Wednesday's match against Slovenia in Port Elizabeth that home truths need to be aired. If England stay in this World Cup it will be because of two meetings, firstly the inquest in a hotel bar in Cape Town immediately after Friday's abject draw with Algeria, and then last night's more peaceful gathering at the Royal Bafokeng Sports Campus here."
Matt Lawton, in the Daily Mail, also concentrates on Terry's attempt to overpower Capello. "Four months after being stripped of the England captaincy, John Terry tried to assume the role of player-manager here on Sunday. At least that was how it looked, how it felt ... It was astonishing. The most extraordinary England press conference since Kevin Keegan announced in 2001 [sic] he had just resigned as manager in a Wembley toilet.
"The players, he suggested, were going to rip up the Capello rule-book and have a beer when they fancied one; tell the celebrated Italian manager how they now wanted to play; tell him that things were going to change. Even that they wanted a man 'at the near post' on set-pieces ... Like it or lump it, Fabio. This is our World Cup too. And he said he was speaking for everyone."
8.20am: The big news of the past 24 hours, to English ears at least, is John Terry's straight talking at the English press conference yesterday morning ... and his subsequent failure to follow through at the team meeting with Fabio Capello last night. As Paul Hayward reports:
This has been the biggest demonstration of England player power since Italia 90, when Bobby Robson came under pressure to switch to a three-man defence after an unconvincing start - and late tonight Capello's players appeared to have won concessions on the timing of the team announcement and improving lines of communication. Robson maintained to the end that the sweeper system was his idea and that he would never have allowed himself to be dictated to by players. Conversely Terry broke ranks alone: raising the possibility that he mistook Cape Town for Cobham, the Chelsea training ground where he wields so much power. Terry's gamble, on Father's Day, was to display himself as the big daddy of this squad and take the discord to the public. At the meeting itself Terry was persuaded to take a back seat. Earlier, he had said: "Whether he [Capello] starts it or finishes it, the players can say how they feel and, if it upsets him, then I'm on the verge of just saying: 'You know what? So what? I'm here to win it for England. He's feeling the same, the players are feeling the same and, if we can't be honest with each other, then there's no point in us being here. You can't hold grudges. If I say something tonight, and I probably will, and a few others will, then I'm doing the best for England." Historians may remember this as the one-beer, one-man putsch. Here, in all its fizzy glory, was the power of the English pint.
What's coming up today: Press conferences and training sessions for almost every team, plus three intriguing games: Portugal v North Korea (12.30pm), Chile v Switzerland (3pm), Spain v Honduras (7.30pm).
As of yesterday, huh? Exist:
1) John Terry trying to take on Fabio Capello in Camp England ... and getting slapped down quicker than a roll of dough in the hands of an expert pizzaioli.
2) The France squad's extraordinary decision to refuse to train.
3) New Zealand, the 2000-1 outsiders, holding out for a draw against
World Champions Italy.
4) And last night's tutti-fruity Brazil v Ivory Coast match ...
Welcome to guardian.co.uk's daily live World Cup blog, wherever you are in the world ... Our hope is that this blog will provide all of the following: breaking news, predictions, pontifications, colour from our 13-strong team in South Africa, plus lots of pointing outwards; to your comments below the line, to the best things we've seen on the web, to various World Cup randomania. Our plan is to update the blog from from 8am-6pm UK time, however the posts will come faster between 9am until around midday, when our minute-by-minute reports will kick-in. As there's no point in duplication from that point on, we'll post the best bits of the minute-by-minutes, and bring you updates from our writers in South Africa and fans' networks members across the globe.