Chris Sabian

The Truth after 23 Years

2012-09-15T06:30:00.000-07:00

For those that don’t know the Hillsborough disaster was a human crush which occurred during the semi-final FA Cup tie between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest football clubs on 15 April 1989 at the Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, England. The crush resulted in the deaths of 96 people, 94 died on the day and two more victims died later in hospital. Another 766 persons were injured. All of those were fans of Liverpool Football Club. The Hillsborough disaster remains the deadliest stadium-related disaster in British history and one of the world's worst ever football accidents.

This week the truth finally came out. A damning report by the Hillsborough Independent Panel laid bare the full extent of police failings that led to the tragedy and their subsequent attempts to shift the blame on to its 96 victims.

Ignored warnings from history

The Hillsborough Panel found the safety of fans admitted to the terrace at the Leppings Lane end of the ground was "compromised at every level". From the condition of the turnstiles to the management of the crowd, alterations to the terrace, the construction of the "pens" in which fans were held, the placement of the crush barriers and the access to the fateful central pens via a tunnel with a one in six gradient. The deficiencies were "well known" and made the crush on 15 April 1989 foreseeable.

According to documents disclosed to the inquiry, there was a serious crush on the terrace at the 1981 FA Cup semi-final between Tottenham Hotspur and Wolverhampton Wanderers in which "many people were injured and fatalities narrowly avoided". New documents show following that incident there was a breakdown in the relationship between Sheffield Wednesday and South Yorkshire Police, which considered the capacity of the terrace too high at 10,100.

The ground was not used for semi finals again until 1987, by which time there had been various moderations and alterations – none of which led to revised safety certificates. Recommendations to feed the pens from designated turnstiles, enabling the club to monitor the number of fans in each one, were ignored because it would cost too much.

"It is evident from the disclosed documents that South Yorkshire Police were preoccupied with crowd management [but] ... Sheffield Wednesday's primary concern was to limit costs." The issue of congested access to the turnstiles remained unresolved, with over 24,000 fans entering through 23 turnstiles at Leppings Lane. The panel found that key issues were not "discussed or recorded" at annual safety inspections. There was a delayed kick off at the 1987 FA Cup semi-final and crushing at the 1988 semi-final. The debriefings from both were "inadequate".

My own experience from 05^th March 1986 would conclude that the Leppings Lane end of Hillsborough was an accident waiting to happen. Whilst on leave I was invited by some friends to an FA Cup replay at the Hillsborough on a Wednesday night. The game between Derby County and Sheffield Wednesday was not an all ticket affair and 1000’s of Derby fans turned up. It could have been a dress rehearsal for what was to eventually happen in 1989.

On this occasion one pen at a time was being filled up, which made sense until the kick off when fans weren’t directed to the remaining empty pen and instead pushed into the central pen. What ensued was a crush the like of which I have never witnessed before. Despite protestations to the police and stewards, nothing was done to ease the situation. We were like caged animals having the air squeezed from our lungs. How no one was killed I will never know, but I have never been back to that ground again.

The day of the disaster and the failings of the police

The decision to replace an experienced match commander, chief superintendent Brian Mole, with one with minimal experience of Hillsborough, chief superintendent David Duckenfield, remains unexplained. But the panel finds that "flaws in responding to the emerging crisis on the day were rooted in institutional tension within and between organisations".

There was inadequate communication and senior officers' decision making was hampered by a malfunctioning radio system and the design of the control box.

The management roles and responsibilities of the police were unclear and the prevailing mindset "prioritised crowd control over crowd safety". Duckenfield acceded to a request for exit gate C to be opened to relieve pressure outside the ground but failed to anticipate the impact on the already-packed central pen of fans descending the tunnel directly opposite. There was no instruction given to manage the flow or direction of the incoming crowd. "From the documents provided to the panel it is clear the crush at the Leppings Lane turnstiles outside the stadium was not caused by fans arriving 'late' for the kick off," it concluded.

Like I said earlier, the police and stewards were just not up to the job and unfortunately at that time football fans were just a bunch of hooligans who were herded here and herded there with no regard for safety. Man, woman or child you were branded a hooligan and treated as such.

'Finding their own level'

Unlike previous years, fans were not filtered or checked on their approach to the ground. South Yorkshire police said the distribution of fans between the pens was based on an informal practice that allowed fans to "find their own level". Information relating to a crush at the previous year's semi-final was deleted from officers' statements and information showing that they had controlled access to the tunnel once central pens were full was also deleted from some statements. "Senior SYP officers denied knowledge of tunnel closures at previous semi-finals … yet SYP officers responsible for closing the tunnel in 1988 claimed they had acted under instructions from senior officers," it said.

Emergency response and aftermath

For a prolonged period, the number of casualties and their serious nature overwhelmed those involved in the initial rescue. The panel found the emergency response to the disaster had not previously been fully examined because of the (wrongful) assumption that the outcome for those who died was irretrievably fixed long before they could have helped.

Disclosed documents show senior officers interpreted crowd unrest in the Leppings Lane end as a sign of potential disorder and were slow to recognise spectators were being "crushed, injured and killed". Ambulance service officers were slower than police to realise the severity of the crush, despite being close to the central pens. Neither fully activated the major incident procedure.

Disclosed documents show "clear and repeated evidence of failures in leadership and emergency response co-ordination". There was a lack of basic equipment and no triage. Statements and ambulance transcripts reveal opportunities to exercise control were missed for almost an hour. The gymnasium was used as a temporary mortuary for unexplained reasons and intrusive questioning about the social and drinking habits of the deceased was perceived as being insensitive and irrelevant.

Medical evidence

The evidence from pathologists led the coroner, Dr Stefan Popper, to impose a cut off time of 3.15pm for his inquest – based on the assumption that all of those who died were already critically injured by then. But the panel finds that this is unsustainable. The panel found there was "clear evidence" that 28 of those who died did not have traumatic asphyxia and it may have taken longer to be fatal. There was separate evidence that the heart and lungs of 31 victims had continued to function after the crush and that was for a prolonged period in 16 of the cases.

Some featured in both groups, but in all 41 victims fell into one or both category. Finally, despite the coroner ordering blood alcohol levels to be taken from all the deceased, there was "no evidence to support the proposition that alcohol played any part in the genesis of the disaster and it is regrettable that those in positions of responsibility created and promoted a portrayal of drunkenness as contributing to the disaster".

Parallel investigations

Throughout multiple investigations including the Taylor inquiry, the coroner's inquiry and inquest and a criminal inquiry led by West Midlands police, it is evident that South Yorkshire police sought to establish a case emphasising exceptional levels of drunkenness and aggression amongst Liverpool fans, alleging many arrived at the stadium late, without tickets and determined to force entry.

The panel found that Margaret Thatcher was very likely given this version of events when she arrived in Liverpool on the Sunday after the disaster, though it found no evidence she colluded with them.

In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, SYP prioritised an internal investigation and the collection of handwritten statements in which officers should consider themselves "the accused".

Following the publication of the Taylor report, which laid the blame at the door of the police and exonerated the fans, the prime minister was briefed that the "defensive – at times close to deceitful – behaviour by the senior officers in South Yorkshire sounds depressingly familiar". In cabinet papers Thatcher expresses her concern that the "broad thrust" of Taylor's report constitutes "a devastating criticism of the police".

Civil litigation

Documents disclosed to the panel show that South Yorkshire police sought to avoid any admission of liability in the settlement of compensation claims and that officers who claimed compensation were pressured to withdraw their own claims.

The coroner's inquiry

Popper decided to hold the inquest in two parts: a "mini inquest" for each death, followed by a later generic inquest to consider the circumstances of the disaster. The procedures adopted for the presentation of evidence to the jury prevented its examination. Families' correspondence demonstrates "serious concerns" regarding what they considered to be a "flawed process".

The generic hearing

It is clear from the documents that South Yorkshire police considered the generic hearings an opportunity to use the court to respond to criticisms levelled against the force by the Taylor report, making it "adversarial rather than inquisitorial" in nature.

"There is a substantial amount of documentary evidence concerning the inadequacy of the inquest process". When Lord Justice Stuart-Smith recognised the complexities and difficulties facing the coroner he considered it had become "out of control" and that it would have been more appropriate to adopt the findings of the Taylor inquiry than to conduct a generic hearing.

The 3:15pm "cut-off" at the inquest

The coroner at the Sheffield inquest limited evidence to events before 3.15pm the day of the disaster, based on pathologists' evidence that all those who died were by that time beyond recovery.

The panel report found that West Midlands police, the investigating force, had also advised a "cut-off" of 3.05pm. The 3.15pm cut-off the coroner chose meant that no evidence was taken on the ambulance and emergency response to the disaster.

The panel found that there are "significant doubts" about the opinion that the victims were beyond recovery and, in fact, 41 victims might have been saved even after 3.15pm had the ambulance response been more effective.

"The imposition of the 3.15pm cut-of severely limited examination of the rescue, evacuation and treatment of those who died," the panel concluded. "This raised profound concerns regarding sufficiency of inquiry and examination of evidence."

The attorney general Dominic Grieve is considering an application from Anne Williams, whose son Kevin, 15, died at Hillsborough, for a new inquest to be held.

Review and alteration of police and ambulance service statements

It emerged in 1997 that senior South Yorkshire police officers had subjected the statements of junior officers on duty at Hillsborough to a process of "review and alteration". The police themselves said it was done to remove "conjecture" and "opinion" from the junior officers' statements, leaving only matters of fact.

However, the panel found that the statements were changed, by senior South Yorkshire police officers working with the force's solicitor, to alter, delete or qualify comments made by officers "unhelpful to the force's case".

Of 164 statements substantially amended, the panel found 116 were to "remove or alter comments unfavourable to South Yorkshire police". Allegations of drunkenness by supporters were emphasised, criticism of the police's own operation or of senior officers was changed or deleted. The panel also found that statements from the South Yorkshire Metropolitan ambulance service were also altered. "In a number of cases they deflected criticisms and emphasised the efficiency of the SYMAS response."

The spreading of unsubstantiated allegations to the media

The panel found that the origin of the "serious allegations" of misbehaviour by Liverpool supporters, most infamously carried by the Sun on 19 April 1989, came from Whites Press Agency in Sheffield. The agency was "informed by" several South Yorkshire police officers, a police federation spokesperson and Irvine Patnick, a local Conservative MP.

The panel found "there is no evidence" to support the allegations of drunkenness, ticketlessness and violence by supporters which were spread by the police.

The panel also found that the South Yorkshire police chief constable, Peter Wright, encouraged junior officers to present this case to the media, as "a defence", to present "a rock solid story". The nature of the stories was to falsely blame the supporters for causing the disaster, and ensure the police would be exonerated by Lord Justice Taylor's inquiry.

Liverpool fans in the 70’s and 80’s gained a reputation for hooliganism not least for their part in the Heysel Stadium disaster. The Heysel Stadium disaster occurred on 29 May 1985 when escaping fans were pressed against a wall in the Heysel Stadium in Brussels, Belgium, before the start of the 1985 European Cup Final1985 between Juventus of Italy and Liverpool. Thirty-nine Juventus fans died and some 600 were injured.

Approximately one hour before the Juventus - Liverpool final was due to kick off, a large group of Liverpool fans breached a fence separating them from a "neutral area" which contained Juventus fans. The Juventus fans ran back on the terraces and away from the threat into a concrete retaining wall. Fans already seated near the wall were crushed; eventually the wall collapsed. Many people climbed over to safety, but many others died or were badly injured. The game was played despite the disaster in order to prevent further violence.

The tragedy resulted in all English football clubs being placed under an indefinite ban by UEFA from all European competitions (lifted in 1990–91), with Liverpool being excluded for an additional year and fourteen Liverpool fans found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and each sentenced to three years' imprisonment. The disaster was later described as "the darkest hour in the history of the UEFA competitions."

Indeed on a visit in 1979 to Anfield I was set upon by a gang of Liverpool fans on Stanley Park severely beaten up. That beating made me join the Derby Lunatic Fringe which in turn would change my life forever. The Derby Lunatic Fringe (DLF) was a hooligan firm associated with English football club Derby County since the early 1970s.

Even at that match I doubt very much if everyone was sober, that everyone had a ticket and that there wasn’t potential for a bit of aggro. However, the findings are now clear and the supporters exonerated. There has been a cloud hanging over the fans for 23 years and that has been lifted. It is not a sense of joy but one of relief.

Criminal prosecutions against those implicated in the Hillsborough disaster are looking increasingly likely after South Yorkshire's chief constable said police officers who engaged in a cover-up should face charges.

David Crompton, who was appointed chief constable of South Yorkshire Police in April, said the issue of criminal responsibility for the changing of statements was the same as in any other situation.

Those 96 who died were let down by all concerned, not just the police and they should all "hang their heads in shame".

But in the cold light of day those who lost their lives and their families will always be the losers at Hillsborough.

Quotes

On behalf of the Government, and indeed our country, I am profoundly sorry for this double injustice that has been left uncorrected for so long.
Prime Minister, David Cameron

Finally the full horror of Hillsborough has been revealed. A catalogue of negligence, appalling failure and sheer mendacity. A tragedy that should have been prevented, lives that should have been saved
Labour MP Andy Burnham, who set up the independent panel

Very positive outcome. 23 yrs waiting for the truth next step justice
Former Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish on Twitter

Today I offer my profuse apologies to the people of Liverpool for that headline [The Truth]. I too was totally misled.
Kelvin MacKenzie, former editor of The Sun

Kelvin MacKenzie’s words are too little too late. He is lowlife, clever lowlife, but lowlife.
Trevor Hicks, who lost two daughters at Hillsborough

Remember being in Barcelona watching the tragedy unfold. 23 years on we learn the truth. 23 YEARS!! A national disgrace!
Gary Lineker on Twitter

It was a shock to learn how many could have been saved. That makes me sad, because I’ll go home and think, was James one of them?
Margaret Aspinall, chairwoman of the Hillsborough Families Support Group, whose son died in the tragedy

At the heart of it are the police’s attempts to smear Liverpool fans. The Sun went along with it and for that we’re deeply ashamed and profoundly sorry.
Current editor, Dominic Mohan

All governments during this period bear their share of responsibility for the failure to get to the truth. The victims were not only blamed by those who were supposed to protect them, they were blamed by those who were responsible for the disaster.
Ed Miliband, Labour leader

The report exonerates supporters who were victims of a smear campaign by elements of the media and senior police officers.
Malcolm Clarke, chairman of the Footballer Supporters’ Federation

Today the world has heard the real truth. As a football club, we will continue to remember those who died and support the families who lost loved ones.
Tom Werner, Liverpool chairman

Everyone involved in the cover-up of Hillsborough is a disgrace and need [to be] punished
Wayne Rooney, on Twitter

Victims and survivors suffered not just on April 15 1989, but for over two decades afterwards with the shameful slandering of their actions.
Steven Gerrard, whose 10-year-old cousin, Jon-Paul Gilhooley, was the youngest fatality

We’ve seen people still stick to this myth that Liverpool fans were responsible for this tragedy. They now know what we’ve known for 23 years, which is that Liverpool fans weren’t responsible.
Ian Ayre, Liverpool managing director

To find out that 164 statements by police officers had been subsequently changed to alter what they said is truly shocking
Clive Betts, MP for Sheffield South-East

I’m ashamed. It’s been a dreadful day for the force. My heart goes out to the families of the 96
David Crompton, Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

Is "Call me Dave" a man or a mouse?

2012-08-31T05:16:00.000-07:00

Tim Yeo is either very brave or very stupid and that is probably going to be a question that is going to be asked in the coming weeks, but for the time being he has asked the disrespectful question of David Cameron "Are you a man or a mouse?"

It is all to do with the Prime Minister's plans - or apparent lack of them - to build a third runway at Heathrow airport.

Actually the third runway at Heathrow is the tip of the iceberg which has brought the question by the undistinguished Yeo into play. Put a different way and the question becomes "Are you Thatcher or Macmillan?"

After two years of Conservative-led Government the wheels of the bus appear to have ground to a halt. According to Yeo, the case for a new runway was “very, very urgent” in order to capitalise on the booming Asian markets. The MP, chairman of the Commons Energy and Climate Change committee, said alternative plans to build a new airport in the Thames estuary would come too late.

A report by Westminster All-Party Parliamentary Group in Aviation says congestion at Heathrow is hampering the economy. But Justine Greening, transport minister, insisted that a Government review on increasing airport capacity will not even consider the idea and Downing Street ruled it out ahead of the next election, expected in 2015. It is ironic that her Putney seat is on the Heathrow flight path.

Deputy PM Nick Clegg made it clear the Lib Dems would resist any U-turn on the issue and that he was looking forward to a new series of "Last of the Summer Wine".

On this issue I really don't have a view. Encouraging more people to our tiny island is not on my agenda, but if it helps the economy then perhaps it has some merit. But if there is to be a high speed rail link between London and Birmingham, then why not increase capacity at Birmingham airport, which to the best of my knowledge is in the countryside and wouldn't affect too many people.

Unfortunately, the high speed rail link seems to be on hold till sometime in the very distant future.

The list goes on. The Big Society isn't mentioned anymore, which is good because I didn't understand what it was in the first place. The economy is not to put too finer point on it is fucked. Our relationship with Europe is at best sour and at worst fucked. The unemployment queue stretches from Lands End to John O'Groats and back to about Peterborough with job creation opportunities minimal and if you are under 25 with no job you are well and truly fucked.

The deficit is widening, inflation is unstable, bankers are doing illegal things everyday and Dave's personal secretary was heard to say the other day "I think we need a bigger in-tray". And this is because he is not dealing with issues.

In reality I doubt the issue of the third runway is that important to Mr Yeo. However, what he has done is bring into question Mr Cameron's standing in the Conservative party. Most of the unease in the Tory party stems from the fear that Cameron is Macmillan in disguise.

It is an interesting paradox. It is widely believed that Thatcher made the party very unpopular over much of the UK and did lasting damage. Whereas, John Major, a true son of Macmillan with a strange taste in currie, temporarily recovered lost ground and won the election in 1992 with a resounding if unexpected victory. By 1997 the Thatcherites in the party had stuck the knife in and Tony Bliar entered. The Conservatives have never recovered.

Despite having huge parliamentary majorities, Mr Bliar achieved amazingly little in his ten years — though he did wage costly wars against a succession of foreign tyrants, one of which is still claiming British soldiers’ lives.

"Real Tory" policies will not bring back the voters and to be fair to Cameron, he knows just that - hence the coalition. He sees this as the only way for the Tories to be a national party again, instead of a geographically sectioned one.

While Cameron dithers, Thatcher reversed 30 years of economic decline by deregulating the economy, privatising inefficient state-run industries and, above all, by introducing trades union reforms, which Wilson, Heath and Callaghan before her had been reluctant or unable to do.

So man or a mouse, the jury is still out. He has time to make the grade. Or he could be just another post war prime minister who survived the revolt, but didn't do much else. It all depends if his enemies within the party will let him. Someone has turned up the heat and its going to be a Yo-Yeo year ahead. My money would be on Cameron being a one-term prime minister.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

Famine: The Final Solution

2012-08-30T06:03:00.001-07:00

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to workout where famine is likely to occur in the future or in fact conflict for that matter. Look for the lack of resources and prepare to defuse situations before they boil over.

And that is what has happened. For years environmental scientists and researchers have been alerting the world community to the devastation that would soon befall East Africa unless long-term planning was put in place to avert a crisis. A sure sign few listened is the crisis we are watching on our television screens at present. Tens of thousands of people have died because warnings were ignored.

But don’t blame me or my fellow westerners. The major blame for all this falls directly at the feet of local African governments. Local and national administrations have stood back, watched, or even abetted efforts to dam or curtail the flow of forested rivers into the regions where people need water for their very survival. Efforts exist to plant thousands, even millions of trees, in the region, but as long as African officials condone the cutting down of trees to grow plantations and diverting the rivers and streams to irrigate those plantations, there will never be enough water to save lives.

No water equals death – it really is that simple.

In the 1980’s Bob Geldof was shouting “Give us your bloody money!” and the response was overwhelming. But the short term gain had very little follow up and no long term strategy.

As a result some years later when the now Sir Bob came knocking again I for one told him to”Feck Off”.

Local African governments went back to their previous practices, and although the threat of famine always hung over the region, they refused to adopt the adaptations necessary to improve life for their people and to rid the region of famine's threat for good. In truth they couldn’t give a toss about their own people. Which begs the question – why should we?

Western intervention and generosity are necessary and life-saving, but unless new practices that promote new methods of conservation can be ushered in, we'll be hearing of regional famines for years to come.

There are plenty of so called experts who are far more knowledgeable than me on the subject matter, but money will not simply end hunger. A hunger crisis is not solely an act of God. It is a complex problem of infrastructure, governance, markets, education. These are things we can shape and strengthen.

All of the countries prone to famine at present have suffered internal chaos from civil war - Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, Liberia, Mozambique, Angola and Malawi. And more than 50 per cent of Oxfam UK's overseas aid worldwide, for example, now goes to conflict-related areas.

Conflict makes people more prone to famine because it disrupts their traditional ways of coping with food scarcity, which might range from gathering wild plants to migrating in search of work. It destroys market centres and transport links, which are prime military targets. It stops people cultivating their land. It turns ordinary people into refugees. It brings about long-term economic decline, as the infrastructure is destroyed and foreign investment collapses.

Stop the conflicts and install democracy, and stable, accountable institutions of governance to “beat back famine”.

Public opinion has a big and underestimated part to play in Africa. The number of African countries with a free press numbers less than the fingers of one hand. African citizens have to make do with endless grey propaganda about the achievements of the government or the movements of The Leader. The climate of public opinion in India is one reason why mass famine is a thing of the past there - Indian political leaders would never get away with having allowed a famine to happen.

African countries have fewer resources than India to play with - and a less developed middle class. But if the behaviour of the President of Ethiopia had been monitored by a free press, would he have been able to spend more than half the annual budget on the military?

When these two objectives have been achieved spending money on food production, infrastructure and social welfare will be money well spent.

I remember a story that is still true today. Give an African a fishing rod to catch fish with, what does he do? Break it up to make a fire. I thing education must be added to the list too. And birth control. How big are some of these families?

While droughts cannot be avoided, famine can. There are many countries in the world which face extraordinary climatic conditions and others that hardly produce any food. Countries in the Arab peninsula face continuous droughts. Yet, the people in these countries seem to be doing fine, as does Singapore, which hardly produces any food and has never faced a food crisis.

Drought is the kiss of death. It tips people over the brink into starvation - but they are only balanced on that brink because at all the neglect that has gone before by successive African governments or should I say misgovernment.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

Flash Harry makes a right cock up this time.

2012-08-24T07:44:00.000-07:00

Prince Harry has taken an overnight flight from LA to Heathrow to face the music with his granny the Queen after we all saw his crown jewels on the internet yesterday. Harry dodged reporter’s questions as he hopped into his car to the airport.

He had been playing “naked billiards” (I’ve heard of naked snooker where you have to decide whether you are going for pink or brown, but never naked billiards) with a gang of girls and guys in his high rollers’ suite at the five-star Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas. The photos were sold to TMZ within minutes of being taken on a mobile phone by someone who was at the party and they’ve now been seen all over the world.

The Queen’s former press secretary has described Harry as a “loose cannon that shouldn’t be left alone”. The Palace are said to disappointed – they thought Harry’s “Party Prince” label was behind him having trained as a helicopter pilot or perhaps he was a chopper pilot.

His public life has been dogged by a long list of scandals and I for one am fed up to the back teeth with it. He is nothing more than a drunken, over-entitled, upper-class fool who spends his time falling out of nightclubs and wearing Nazi fancy dress at my expense. A silver spooned piss head that lives off the state. For someone who is third in line to the throne that is quite simply not good enough. Do it in private, that’s not a problem but don’t rub this county’s nose in it, ust because you have no money worries.

He does a few weeks toil attending the Olympics and shaking a few hands and then decides it is time for a jolly and let off a bit of steam at the £5,100-a-night suite in the five-star Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas.

I don't know what the world's coming to when you can't trust some random girl you met in Las Vegas? Come on man, how can you be so stupid. Don’t they teach you anything at Eton these days?

Now we’ve all been there. Hell I can remember two glorious nights in Vegas with a banker from Seattle called Karen. Wow, she had amazing breasts and they were real too. But I wasn’t buffooning around with a bunch of toffs with a personal bodyguard present, which incidentally costs the British taxpayer £2m a year.

A spokesman for the prince insisted that they were taken on ‘an entirely private occasion’ and argued that Harry had a ‘reasonable expectation of privacy’ in his own hotel suite. Apparently not when a bunch of tarts are intent on making a few quid and you are of Royal blood.

It is quite likely that Flash Harry’s minders will be sacked for 'enjoying the party more than protecting Prince' and 'acting like amateurs who were asleep at the wheel'. I’m not exactly sure how protecting the Ginger one can be done when you are wearing your swimming trunks in a Jacuzzi. Where is his gun for a start? And if he is not deemed to need one then is there any justification for him being there?

This is a first for the royals and a new low for the royal protection team. Now, the royal family has to brace itself for a steady drip of further revelations, as the women at the party will inevitably be identified over the next few days. UK tabloid reporters and photographers are currently swarming British airports to get on flights to Vegas and track down the women.

The real horror, of course, would be a video of the strip party emerging.

In the past he has given his critics plenty of ammunition, from smoking cannabis as a teenager to a nightclub scuffle with a paparazzi photographer.

Harry was forced to apologise for describing an Asian fellow officer cadet as "our little Paki friend" when video footage emerged in 2009 of the royal making the comment during his time at Sandhurst military academy three years earlier.

Another serious error of judgment saw him attend a friend's fancy dress birthday party wearing a swastika armband in 2005 which caused widespread outrage.

The incident happened in the run up to the national commemorations attended by the Queen to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

In the autumn of 2004, he was embroiled in controversy when his former Eton art teacher claimed she helped him cheat in his A-level.

Clarence House described the allegations by sacked tutor Sarah Forsyth as "incredibly unfair" and the exam board later said there was no evidence to support the claims.

Then just a week later, Harry was pictured scuffling with a photographer outside the Pangaea nightclub in central London.

No criminal action resulted, but the paparazzi snapper's cut lip and the pictures of an angry, red-faced Harry further dented his image.

The public's sympathy may have been with the hounded prince, but in royal circles it was simply not the done thing.

Harry's first serious negative publicity happened when as a 17-year-old he was involved in under-age drinking and taking cannabis.

During his schooldays, Harry was relatively sheltered from exposure to the media partly thanks to the protection of his mother.

Through an informal agreement struck in the wake of her death, the media left Harry and William alone while they finished their education.

Quite frankly I’m surprised he has survived for so long in the army, because he clearly has no respect for anyone or thing. Having said that, Prince Harry’s army life is on a different planet to the average grunt.

When average people are going through a recession last seen in the 1920’s, worrying whether they can pay their rent at the end of the month, trying to put food on the table for their children, I think this kid is insulting not just the Royal Family but the Country too with his exuberant expenditure and total lack of thought. He is sticking two fingers up to the very people that pay his wages.

Frankly, I don’t care for him. William is clearly his mother’s son. I’m not sure whose son Harry is.

This is one idiotic episode too far and as Captain Mainwaring would say “Stupid Boy!”

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

Should there be more sport in schools?

2012-08-12T07:53:00.001-07:00

"If we want to have a great sporting legacy for our children - and I do - we have got to have an answer that brings the whole of society together to crack this, more competition, more competitiveness, more getting rid of the idea all-must-win prizes and you can't have competitive sports days." It could only be the prime minister after the best British Olympic medal haul in living memory.

The opening ceremony marked the start of a two-week period in which everything good has inevitably resulted from the Olympics and anything bad has been the fault of the Coalition. In spite of the fact that he’s tried, in a ludicrously conspicuous fashion, to make himself the face of the games, I’m actually slightly apathetic towards David Cameron’s plight.

His call to reintroduce more competition in school sports, while simultaneously scraping compulsory targets for the minimum hours of PE, has reignited the debate on the role of sport in school. Against the backdrop of Team GB's overwhelming Olympic success, the prime minister is abolishing the previous government's initiative to make all pupils engage in at least two hours of sport a week. The move has drawn criticism from British Olympians of old, including Dame Kelly Holmes, who announced her disapproval.

This is just another knee jerk reaction to a situation that has put the “Great” back into Great Britain. Successive governments have cut funding to schools forcing them to sell off playing fields for housing developments and what happened to the directive of stopping competition in school sports because the fat kid would get upset and demoralised.

To introduce more competition into school sports has to be the right thing to do, but surely only for the kids that have the aptitude.

I loved sport at school but I can imagine there are many looking back at school sports with misplaced nostalgia? Remember Stephen Fry recalling his hatred of school sports:

"I do not think there has ever been a schoolboy with such overmastering contempt, fear, dread, loathing, and hatred for "games" – for sport, exercise, gymnastics and physical exertions of all or any kinds. Every day I would wake up with a sick jolt wondering just how I might get out of that day's compulsory rugby, cricket, hockey, swimming or whatever foul healthy horror was due to be posted on the notice-board that morning. The catalogue of multiple lies, evasions, self-imposed asthma attacks and other examples at what Edwardian school fiction characterised as "lead-swinging", malingering and "cutting". All the acts of a cad, a swine, a rotter, an outsider and a beast."

But then he was destined to be an intellectual not a runner.

Mr Cameron is not exactly Mr Popular with the teachers at the moment and the head teachers' leaders have called the prime minister's comments on school sport "extremely unfair". In response to which DC suggested some teachers were not "playing their part".

The Association of School and College Leaders (ACSL) said Mr Cameron failed to recognise the "huge contribution" many teachers made to school sport and teachers say cuts are affecting sport.

The idea of an Olympics legacy is high on the political agenda, with politicians, sportsmen and women and commentators talking of the need to ensure young people benefit from the 2012 London Games through greater involvement in sport. But let’s not forget that a relatively large number of Team GB's medal winners went to private schools. Although, Jessica Ennis, Mo Farah, Bradley Wiggins and Andy Murray didn’t.

The coalition government is also coming under fire for removing the requirement that schools in England provide pupils with at least two hours of sport a week - the minimum expected in schools in other parts of the UK.

In 2010, with Labour, nearly eight in every 10 pupils were taking part in competitive sport, an increase of one fifth from 2007. But in the last year, government cuts have meant that 60% less staff time has been dedicated to organising sport in our schools.

So playing with statistics means I haven’t got a clue what is going on but the government’s intention to invest £1bn in school sports over the next four years begs the question – where is the frickin’ money coming from?.

And this is where the whole sorry mess gets out of control. No matter how much money you throw at this the end result will not be success. Olympic sports bear absolutely no resemblance to sports that are accessible to the average Joe on the street. Do you really think that if every kid from Tower Hamlets decided that they wanted to compete in the keirin in 2020, there could ever be a situation where they’d all be able to pop over to the local velodrome and be greeted by hundreds of cheery volunteers on those funny little pace bikes?

The Olympic legacy should not be about “inspiring the next generation of elite performers” but establishing systemic change to increase wholesale participation in sports. In turn, this would raise the level of sporting achievement in the country as a whole. All this talk of increasing the number of state educated medal winners is just nonsense. If the next World cup were to be held in the UK, would we look at the England squad and laud state schools for producing so many professional footballers? The answer is no. Elite athletes represent such a small fraction of the total population that it’s a moot point, World Cup (or London 2012) notwithstanding.

In saying this, there’s a reason that football is accessible to the working classes. Sports such as tennis and rowing require a lot of expensive specialist coaching even at grassroots level. Whilst it’s not fair that those from a privileged background are given the opportunity to try out a wider range of sports, it’s also unrealistic to introduce rowing and other Olympic sports into the state school consciousness.

That’s not to say that sports provisions are adequate in the public sector. Although facilities at your local comp can’t match up to those of a private school, the lack of specialist coaches is the main problem. In his mutterings about teachers not playing their part, what Cameron failed to articulate is that state schools are not structured in a manner that enables high quality sports instruction. Given resources and time-tabling are already stretched, if a school was landed with a magic pot of cash, it is not in the best interests of the head to provide specialist sports classes to mixed gender PE classes of 25 students. Firstly, the problem needs to be put in perspective, yet it is this exceptional level of instruction that is required for children to aspire to make sports a meaningful part of their lives.

Without specialist coaches, it is unfeasible to give PE teachers the responsibility of delivering expert sports instruction. Not every PE teacher understands every sport. Some sports, such as hockey, may appear too complicated to teachers, who are consequently deterred from teaching them, according to England Hockey.

There are other reasons for a lack of sports participation in schools. Too much focus on examinations. No-one becomes an Olympic athlete overnight. It takes hours and hours of quality practice and one commodity that is in short supply these days is time. Many children are raised on a limited diet of school sport. In the winter, they are offered football and rugby, and in the summer, tennis and cricket.

The Olympics has put the spotlight on sport for the British public, but it’s the former and not the latter that has caught our imagination. Hopefully, the general public won’t forget about sports as quickly as they forgot about the societal problems that lead to the riots this time last year. If nothing else, I’m hoping that Ennis and co. will replace the vacuous celebrities that have acted as role models and glamorized a “something for nothing” culture amongst our country’s youth.

Or we could embrace Boris Johnson’s approach. Johnson said he had "no doubt" that two hours' sport every day would be "wonderful" for schoolchildren. The mayor described the programme of activities provided by Eton and said all pupils should enjoy the same sporting advantages.

"I would like to see two hours a day. I would like to see, frankly, the kind of regime I used to enjoy – compulsory two hours' sport every day," he said.

"I've no doubt that is the sort of thing that would be wonderful for kids across this country."

Is buggery in the showers also compulsory Boris?

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

Time to put the boot in on overpaid footballers

2012-08-12T05:38:00.000-07:00

After being an Olympic sceptic I am now an Olympic fanatic. Well on some sports anyway. And one thing is certain and that is there will be a number of females contesting the BBC Sports Personality of the Year. Something that didn’t happen last year!

Any one of our gold medal heroes is a serious candidate whilst at the other end of the spectrum not one of our pathetic footballers will be considered. And we still have the Ryder Cup to come.

One thing the Olympics have shown me is the gulf in talent and dedication between our Olympians (including the ladies football team) and any of Britain’s fantastically well-paid yet perennially under-achieving football stars.

This summer they have gone to not one but two international competitions. And, as usual, they have crashed out at the quarter finals. Yep, you guessed it on penalties.

Repeatedly, we hope against hope they will step up and deliver at the crucial moment, in the same way our Olympians manage to do. Repeatedly, they bottle it.

The point was aptly proved the other Saturday evening. I was watching two channels at once. Mo Farah in the 10,000 metres and Team GB football team.

Mo Farah, when he heard the bell for that final lap, was simply not prepared to lose. His African rivals threw down challenge after challenge. He resisted like his very life depended on it.

Meanwhile, our footballers were ambling – against South Korea, which is far from a footballing super power – towards a shootout which would inevitably end in disaster.

I’m sure they were trying to win. But the public will compare their tame exit with, say, the extraordinary determination of Mark Hunter, who collapsed with exhaustion and had to be carried from his boat by Sir Steve Redgrave after winning a silver earlier on the same day, and not be mightily impressed.

True, there are reasons to be forgiving of Team GB. They had little time to prepare and this was a probably never-to-be-repeated experiment in combining the home nations into a single football team. But these guys are supposed to be professional.

And there are no excuses for the England football team’s repeated failures on the big stage. The brutal truth is they are not good enough; do not want victory enough – or both.

So what’s the problem?

Everybody has an opinion, and the one word that figures most prominently is ‘money’.

In simple terms, footballers are stinking rich. These guys shit £50 notes. Even an average premiership player is getting £50,000 per week and some are up to £200,000 a week. How long would it take you to earn that sort of loot?

This wealth is not dependent on their performances for the international team. They have money hurled at them for delivering for their clubs (who, in truth, would rather international teams, who get their players injured, didn’t exist).

They can under-perform chronically for England kick over a water bottle, shrug their shoulders and return home with their massive salaries intact.

Within days of England’s humbling by Italy at Euro 2012 – yes, it was on penalties, but they were utterly outclassed throughout – the losing players had packed their expensive Louis Vuitton initialled suitcases and headed off to Las Vegas.

An early exit simply allowed for them to hit the pool earlier. So where, fans ask, is the incentive to succeed?

Even most of the footballing members of Team GB, while predominantly aged under-23 – are either already millionaires, or well on their way.

Do we blunt their desire by giving these hugely gifted young men too much too soon? Most boys who can run and kick a ball want to be professional footballers.

Those who make it have achieved something fantastic. Yet, as soon as they hit 17 or 18, the agents move in. It’s all about the money and the adulation.

They do not need to actually win anything for England to have young girls hurling themselves at their feet, or people pandering to their every whim. The mountains of cash guarantee it.

Then take a look at many of our Olympians. They are reliant on National Lottery handouts to keep going and live in very modest homes. No wonder they grit their teeth and go for the finishing line. Everything depends upon it. Fail and they lose their funding, and must find another job.

As someone who spent his childhood in Belfast and idolised George Best I have always loved football. I can still remember some of the great matches I have watched live and on the television as if it were yesterday, but the endless under achievement of our so called stars pisses me off to the point of despair and let down.

And that is why I am going to do my bit to try and change the face of football in this country. I have stopped my Sky subscription. Sky have made top footballers so fabulously wealthy but not with my money, not any more.

Consider the wealthiest English footballer ever – David Beckham. Apart from one game against Greece when on his own he got us a draw to guarantee a place in the 2002 World Cup what else has he done for England?

1998 World Cup – sent off against Argentina. We lost and went out.

2002 World Cup – missed a crucial tackle by jumping over the Brazilian and within ten seconds Brazil had scored. We lost and went out.

2006 World Cup – missed a penalty. We lost and went out.

2010 World Cup – didn’t get picked. We were so poor it was embarrassing. Oh and Rooney you were a complete tool in that tournament.

There are many potential legacies of London 2012. The return of competitive sports in schools, and the end of the prizes for all culture which long ago captured the state education system, chief among them.

But if one further consequence of Britain’s Olympic success is that we no longer focus all our attentions – and money - on football players who, frankly, do not deserve it, then so much the better.

If we, the public, stop treating footballers like Gods, perhaps they might actually start playing like them. The football clubs treat supporters like something very smelly that you find on the bottom of your shoe. Sure we need a team to support and watch, so why not turn to ladies football.

I have never seen such honest endeavour and effort. No back chatting the referee, no feigning injury, no cheating, no sending offs. Just 100% commitment. It was brilliant and all football supporters should embrace their ethos and start supporting the ladies game.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

The Problem with Problem Families is…..

2012-08-11T06:35:00.000-07:00

Louise Casey, head of troubled families policy, has produced a report that promises "stark real-life accounts from families, with experiences often passed from generation to generation, such as domestic and sexual abuse, teenage pregnancies, poor parenting, social care interventions, police call-outs and educational failure". Casey conducted detailed interviews with 16 households, from which a set of policies is laid out to deal with 120,000 troubled families.

Now I have got a good memory and that figure is rather common. In June, Eric Pickles used it as a springboard for his “no excuses” lecture, in which he warned that his government would be "a little less understanding" and there would be a tougher approach to the families who are "fluent in social work" and are responsible for chaos that costs the country £9bn every year. He wanted fewer children playing truant, life-long benefit claimants on the road to employment, and fewer police call-outs to problem homes.

In an interview with The Independent on Sunday, Mr Pickles said the programme would be "more forceful in language, a little less understanding". He added: "Sometimes we've run away from categorising, stigmatising, laying blame."

After the riots last year, David Cameron pledged his particular attention to this 120,000, putting Emma Harrison (head of A4e) in charge – until it transpired that she had problems of her own.

Unfortunately when governments talk of 120,000 families they are using figures from 2004, in which families were counted who met five of seven criteria. These were: earning a low income; nobody in the family working; poor housing; parents with no qualifications; the mother having a mental health problem; one parent with a longstanding illness or disability; and the family unable to afford basics including food and clothes.

It's an interesting mix, since once you'd met five, it must be all but impossible to avoid fulfilling all seven. But what of delinquency or sexual abuse or social workers or the police? Absolutely no mention of this in the criteria. So I can only conclude from this data that poor people are criminals, which of course is an unreasonable conclusion.

But at a time of austerity and a bleak jobs market, and with the Tories vulnerable to the charge of being out of touch, any attempt to target the poorest people risks looking insensitive.

One commentator had an interesting thought on the issue: “I believe the ulterior motive is the demonisation of the poor, with the aim, in the long run, of simply slicing off these families at the bottom of what we think of as "society". Thereafter, terms like "fairness" and "empathy" and "all in this together" can be bandied around pretty freely, because the evidence of their extinction will no longer exist. The problem families won't count – because they severed the social contract with their criminality and un-neighbourliness.

A more generous reading is one of political expedience, that this is just an attempt to flatten out the complexity of the 120,000 with a mind to delivering the straightforward, optimistic message that these "problems" are solvable. So I'll allow for some flexibility in how it could be interpreted, but what I won't allow is the idea that the coalition is doing this – conflating criminality, undesirability, poverty and illness – by accident. Once is an accident. Three times, from three different people: that's a policy.”

The "it's not my fault" culture of excuses, which has allowed 120,000 "troubled families" to avoid taking responsibility for their own lives needs resolving but is throwing money at it the answer. It seems like a carrot and stick approach to me and sadly these people need educating not more handouts.

The country's most troubled families will be forced to undergo a £10,000 programme to break the cycle of their 'dreadful backgrounds' as it has emerged one problem family had cost a council £250,000.

In many households violence is endemic and "entrenched cycles of suffering problems and causing problems" poisons whole social networks.

Central government will provide £4,000 in funding per household, costing taxpayers a total of £450 million, while the rest will be paid for by local authorities.

The money will go towards reducing truancy, youth crime and anti-social behaviour, or putting parents back into work. Those who refuse to accept help will be faced with eviction or having benefits removed.

Local authorities will be responsible for identifying a total of 120,000 households where children and adults are in trouble with the law, youngsters are not going to school, and there are significant issues with alcohol or drug abuse.

The scheme follows a report into troubled families which was ordered following last year's riots and released today, which shows that many of those caught up in the riots came from families known to social services and with parents who had themselves been in trouble with the law.

The report also found that the “troubled families” blamed for last summer’s riots were typically made up of single mothers bringing up children from relationships with several absent fathers, an official analysis has found.

So straight away I have found one answer to the problem that will cost nothing. Unless you are financially viable, have a stable background are in a long term relationship and have no police record or history of drugs and alcohol then by law you cannot have children.

Critics will claim the prospects of these families will be worsened by the coalition's programme of public spending cuts. The Department for Communities and Local Government is cutting council funding by more than a quarter over four years. Councils are expected to provide 60 per cent of the funding to help problem families, in addition to £448m from Whitehall.

However it has to be said that come artificial boom, come bust; come tough times, come good times... these families have been completely immune from it. Even at the height of our debt-fuelled boom, it wasn't even impinging slightly on these people's lives. It's just been the easiest thing for authorities to say, 'Here's some money, go away.'

The idea that a problem that has been about for two or three generations can be cleared just like that by a bunch of bureaucrats is quite frankly a pipe dream.

There is plenty of existing evidence that if you want to intervene with families, you do so in a voluntary, un-stigmatising way, with a local hub providing many different services, from parenting advice to English lessons. You could call them Sure Start centres: you could stop closing them down and you could stop removing their funding.

My solution is a simple one. We need to stop viewing troubled families as problems and start seeing them as people. Experience has taught us that we can only help children and parents to change their life stories if we tackle sometimes angry and abusive behaviour at its root. We know that what makes a difference for the most troubled families is having just one person they can consistently turn to for practical help and support.

And if that fails send them to Australia like we did with the convicts all those years ago.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

The Olympic Fiasco

2012-08-11T06:32:00.003-07:00

I’ll tell you now I have no enthusiasm for the Olympics whatsoever. For me the ethos of the Games has long since gone and now it is just a commercial tool for the likes of Coca Cola and McDonalds. Even the competitors are now professional.

But it’s not just that. It’s much deeper than that. The Olympics fiasco has not been out of the news since the countdown went below one year and all for the wrong reasons.

The latest fiasco is the G4S security debacle. Bungling G4S bosses admitted their handling of Olympic security was a “humiliating shambles” — but refused to give up their £57million fee.

The confession came as furious MPs tore into chief executive Nick Buckles over the failure to supply thousands of guards at Games venues.

Police and soldiers have had to be called in to provide emergency cover after security staff hired by G4S failed to turn up.

Mr Buckles was asked at the Commons home affairs select committee if the Olympics were a humiliating shambles for his firm.

He replied: “I cannot disagree with you.”

The £830,000-a-year boss admitted the reputation of G4S was “in tatters”. Mr Buckles said he regretted signing a £284million contract for 10,400 guards.

But the firm will take a £57million management fee. He said: “We’ve managed the contract and had management on the ground for two years.”

And this is one example of the greed that surrounds not only the Olympics but people who take advantage of their position for financial gain. How on earth does this comedian justify a salary of £830,000 a year?

Committee chairman Keith Vaz said later: “This has been the most appalling management. They should waive their entire fee.”

So far G4S has only managed to supply 4,200 staff. This is expected to rise to 7,000. But Mr Buckles admitted he could not guarantee they would all turn up and agreed to pay the bill for troops and cops.

So who is ultimately to blame? Who at games organisers Locog was monitoring the contract with G4S? A fair and simple question for the home affairs committee chairman Keith Vaz to put. Here's the answer Locog's Paul Deighton provided in a letter to Vaz on Monday: "The contract was initially monitored weekly by the multi-agency Security Workforce Board. From January 2012, this body was subsumed into the Venue Security Deliver Board ('VSBD') [sic], a multi-agency body, meeting weekly, reporting directly to the Olympic Security Board, with members from the Home Office, GOE, Police, MOD, G4S and Locog. The VSDB monitored the G4S progress on the recruitment, training and accreditation of security guards for the Games and received weekly reports." There's more. "Locog established two bodies operating jointly with G4S. These bodies — the Contract Management Board and the Contract Performance Board, respectively — reported into the VSDB and initially met bi-weekly before moving to weekly meetings several months ago." In May, Locog also instituted weekly meetings with G4S "to review performance". Let's not forget the regular reviews by another Locog body, the Contract Review Board. And yet, with all those cooks stirring the broth, it all went wrong. Unbelievable.

And yet all of these people who earn vast sums of money each year have remained tight lipped and pointed the finger elsewhere, namely G4S.

Apart from the fact that anybody with half a brain would surely have seen holes in their plans for just in time recruiting it would appear that Buckles and the G4S hierarchy buried their respective heads in the sand and probably found Sebastian Coe.

According to a well informed source Lord Coe writes everything in long hand doesn’t use a computer and considers emails a “major intrusion”. So did he actually read the emails about G4S?

And who would want a job at The Home Office at any time not just now? The Home Office was kept informed of proceedings throughout, but were clearly too busy with border controls and snooping on all of our emails – except that is if your email address is G4S@incompetent.com

So what happens next? What happens next is what should have happened in the first place. Rather than gifting £284m to Buckle and his cowboys the money should have gone to the army and police who are best placed to provide security on a professional basis. Why? – Because that is their full time occupation.

I have worked all my life and at no time has anyone paid me in advance the full amount for a contract. The payment has normally been based on certain criteria being fulfilled, so why did G4S get £284m up front?

Also, if they end up paying the army/police £50m for them to supply 3,500 personnel, which equates to 27% of the total 13,000 security requirement. Then that would suggest an overall contract price of £185m, why therefore is the contract worth £284m?

So ignoring the ticket scandals, the sponsorship scandals, the fact that you can not enter any stadia with more than one sandwich and no drink and that if you are caught wearing a Pepsi T-shirt you will be flogged…what is in it for me? Well, absolutely nothing it would appear, despite the local council trying its utmost to convince me otherwise.

There doesn’t seem to be a ray of sunshine for Londoners either.

Even in good times, Western Europe's biggest and most colourful city is a place that demands a high tolerance for stress of its residents. Everything there is almost always simultaneously expensive and full, whether it's buses, restaurants, concerts, hotels or living spaces. As a result, London assumes only a modest spot, 38th place out of 221 cities worldwide, on the Mercer 2011 Quality of Living Survey, far behind Vienna (1st), Munich (4th), Toronto (15th), Hamburg (16th), Berlin (17th) and Singapore (25th).

The Economist claims that London "had the best infrastructure in the world" 100 years ago. But, today, the city is already being pushed to its limits on a daily basis. And now this major city is about to host the world's most challenging major spectacle, the Olympics.

Evidently the local consensus is “No thanks!”

"We have, collectively, osmotically, decided that we hate the Olympics," the feared, London-based critic A.A. Gill wrote in the New York Times in April. The Olympics, he adds, are too expensive and will only make life more complicated, so much so that it will be impossible to get a taxi. "But most of all," he writes, "one thing this city doesn't need is more gawping, milling, incontinently happy tourists."

When then-Prime Minister Tony Blair accepted the awarding of the 2012 Olympics to London on July 6, 2005, to public applause, the proponents held out the prospect of a cheap spectacle accompanied by an economic miracle, with a price tag of only £2.37 billion (€3.02 billion, $3.71 billion). The East End of London, parts of which had been a polluted industrial wasteland for decades, would be cleaned up and blossom like never before. And an entire generation of British children would become caught up in the Olympic fever and turn into athletes.

No one is making such claims anymore.

A parliamentary committee recently concluded that the Games will cost the public sector alone £11 billion. Some critics believe that the total cost for London will, in fact, amount to some £24 billion.

As one astute commentator pointed out, the eventual cost of the Olympics will be the same as sending every UK resident to the Caribbean for a two week all inclusive holiday. When can I go?

The 2012 London Olympics will probably end up looking like the host city itself: a little chaotic, a little infuriating, never perfect, but with a lot of room for improvisation, charm and talent. But what a difference a few gold medals will make.

Bet on the usual suspects – cycling, sailing, and Jess Ennis.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

Bring Back National Service

2012-08-10T03:55:00.000-07:00

General Stanley McChrystal's proposal that the United States should consider bringing back the draft has brought howls of derision from those with bitter memories of the Vietnam War. For The Guardian, Matthew Harwood blogged, "There's a reason why the word conscript pairs so well with the word slave: both become objects who no longer own themselves."

In the light of recent goings on in this country, perhaps, McChrystal’s basic argument should not be dismissed so lightly. As the military planners scramble to find troops to fill the gaps in Olympic security, it is widely reported that raw recruits from Catterick may have to be used - here the case for some kind of youth service, not confined to military service alone, and voluntary rather than mandatory, might be getting stronger.

National Service ran from 1945 to 1963, with 2.5 million young men conscripted. They were used as part of the 100,000-strong occupation force in post-war Germany, to police Palestine and protect Aden and the Suez Canal Zone. Some had an easier time in Singapore, Hong Kong and lesser military bases.

When it was phased out, the senior military cheered along with everyone else. Socially and politically it was inconvenient and unpopular, so no UK politician of rank has seriously considered re-introducing conscription, however reworked.

McChrystal argues for a US conscript force to do the support jobs at home for the forces deployed abroad. This would relieve the pressure on the US Army and Marine Corps personnel, who have been under intolerable strain during the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A symptom of this has been the high rate of marriage breakdown in military families, and of suicides among soldiers and veterans which continues to soar year on year. The annual total of suicides is way above that of the number of service men and women killed in action. How can that be allowed to happen?

Similar strains are reported here in the British armed forces – and they are sure to get worse as the coalition government cuts the Army by a fifth, from 102,000 to 82,000, in fewer than five years. The services as a whole are being asked to do more with less, not only in war zones, but helping with flood relief and the Olympics.

The shortfall in the British Army is to be made up by a new reserve force of 30,000, an aspiration bordering on pure fantasy. The Territorial Army has never been an effective force in times of peace in just over 100 years of history. It is hard to see how employers in present times would be prepared to let their brighter and more energetic workers go off to the colours for long periods. At best the government should aim at a professional, more or less full-time, reserve of around 10,000 – made up of men and women who might live in their own homes and be available for service within the UK.

The government's obsession with the market and private sector has hit the skid pan with the G4S saga. Public security run by private enterprise puts public good up to auction to private rip-off. So what is the answer?

Since we require defence against potential aggressors, let us all, collectively, be responsible for it. Bring back National Service!

Old, young, female, male, straight, gay, accountants, engineers, lawyers and for canon fodder – bankers. Let us all do our bit and maintain a citizen army, as the Swiss do, numbering in the many millions.

Forget your work programmes and your unpaid work schemes that only benefit supermarkets and charity shops. If you've been out of work for months and are raking in more money in benefits than you would in a job, then join the army. Good prospects, learn a skill and do something with your life. Your country needs you.

The idea of giving those young people who can't find a job new opportunities and new challenges has some merit and should not be dismissed.

Such a scheme would promote discipline, respect of themselves and others, basic life skills, economic management and maybe even a sense of community and something to be proud of. It could even create a less selfish generation who actually took some responsibility for their actions.

If the unemployed were forced to join the forces, the country would at least be getting something for the money it dishes out to the unemployed.

This isn't necessarily about sending conscripts out to Afghanistan to get killed. The armed forces are active around the world, helping communities tackling natural disasters - floods, famine, aid distribution - and then at home, on non-urgent but equally valuable tasks in the local community.

Aside from the military aspect, this is not too far away from what the Government is considering with its citizen service scheme which has called for all children after they have completed their GCSEs to sign up to give something back to their neighbourhood so why not go a little bit further and really make a difference?

I was a professional soldier who saw action on four continents. It made me the person I am today and for that I am thankful. A short-term public service scheme is no pipe dream. It might do something to mitigate the swelling ranks of disaffected, disillusioned and under-achieving school and college leavers.

Not all unemployed people are feckless. Not all unemployed people sit around drinking Special Brew and working out how to play the system as they watch football on their giant plasma screen televisions while stubbing out cigarettes on their pit bulls. And that is why this would work, there is still hope.

Yes we have several generations of workshy, often criminal, unpleasant young men and women who think it is their right to live off benefits but giving them a taste of life in the military isn't going to make them go away – so why not use them as target practice?

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

The Queen has a McGuinness Handshake

2012-08-10T03:47:00.003-07:00

The epic first handshake between the Queen and former IRA terror commander and current Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness is to take place. The Queen's historic meeting with Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness will also be filmed for posterity, Buckingham Palace has confirmed.

The initial handshake between the Queen and the former IRA commander will remain private but farewells between the two individuals will be filmed and photographed. The historic encounter between the former IRA commander - now Northern Ireland's Deputy First Minister - and the Queen was unthinkable a little over 10 years ago but now it seems that time is a great healer.

The success of the peace process and the Queen's acclaimed visit to the Republic of Ireland last year, when her conciliatory words and gestures won over many critics of the monarchy, paved the way for their meeting.

The much-anticipated handshake will take place away from the media spotlight behind closed doors but does this mean the struggle is over.

I was born in Irvinestown in County Fermanagh before the violence escalated and was whisked to America because my father was a US marine. At the age of nine I was to return to my homeland after my father was killed in an attack at Da Nang in ’69 and my mother stricken with grief committed suicide some months after his funeral.

I went to live with my grandmother on the Falls Road, Belfast. From that you will know that my family are Catholics. To me I didn’t know what was what or who was who and quite frankly didn’t care. Everyone was the same to me. But I had spent all my life on army bases in America where religion wasn’t an issue but colour was.

Industry choked and died in the 70s and the growing violence by the Catholic Provisional IRA and the Protestant UDA precluded any new industry taking root. The men on both sides became totally focused on the struggle. Ireland's pre-eminent city of commerce, wealth and industry, was reduced to a series of barren buildings and smokestacks. The focus of life moved from work to war. The economy shuddered to a stop.

Unemployment, deprivation and fear permeated the streets. Working class Protestants and Catholics withdrew into the security of housing estates based on religion. The isolation fuelled a siege mentality.

Residents of Belfast were sealed off in a patchwork of segregated neighbourhoods divided by barbed wire and patrolled by masked guerrillas.

Suddenly there was no freedom, just fear. No parks, no communal facilities, no shops, no fun. The estates had one entry and one exit so the army could contain violence. Deaths, beatings and fear of the outside world became the norm. For us Catholics the fear was reinforced by the British Army carrying out middle of the night raids on our estates, firing rubber bullets internments.

The depths of isolation became intense. Self preservation was top of the list.

I can still remember what history now refers to as the “Falls Curfew”. The Falls Curfew (also called the "Battle of the Falls" or the "Rape of the Lower Falls") was a British Army operation during 3–5 July 1970 in an area along the Falls Road. 3000 British troops sealed off the streets around our home. The operation started with a weapons search, followed by the setting off of CS gas. The situation quickly developed into rioting and gun battles between British soldiers and the IRA. Shortly after the violence began, the British commander imposed a curfew, which eventually lasted 36 hours. During the curfew, four civilians were killed by the British Army, at least 75 people were wounded (including 15 soldiers) and 337 people were arrested.

To anyone who experienced the battle, it was perfectly obvious that hundreds and hundreds of bullets were being fired by both sides – and yet the Army had the gall, when asked by reporters later in the weekend, to say that its soldiers fired only 15 shots in total.

The soldiers fired 1,600 canisters of CS gas in a very small area. The clouds of choking and suffocating gas drifted up the narrow alleyways and back streets of the warren that is the Lower Falls. The gas got everywhere, in through windows, under doors and into the residents' eyes, noses, throats and lungs. There were allegations that some soldiers fired CS gas canisters through the windows of houses while residents were still inside, but I don’t know about that.

The soldiers behaved with a new harshness. They axed down doors, ripped up floorboards, smashed chairs, sofas, beds, in fact anything that might be concealing weapons.

It is hard to believe that the curfew was broken around 9am on Sunday 5 July, when 3,000 women from Andersonstown marched to the lower Falls with food and other groceries for us. The unprepared soldiers tried to hold back the crowd at first, but eventually allowed it to pass through.

At the head of the crowd was Lillie Carlin, a brash woman with the rosiest cheeks you have ever seen. She strutted past the line of soldiers cursing them like the devil himself. She was an immense woman in many ways not least because she had brought up five children on her own.

This was to be the end of the British army’s honeymoon period with the Catholic community in Northern Ireland. From being a neutral force in the city the British Army became a hostile colonial army of occupation. The next 30 years saw a heavy presence of troops on the Falls road. They even had a base on top of the Divis Tower. For 30 years the Falls Road area saw some of the worst violence seen during the “Troubles”.

The year of the Queen’s silver jubilee was my last in Northern Ireland. I was going back to America to study. Why? – Because my mother and father would have wanted me too and I made a promise to my grandmother that I would make something of my life before she died.

The Queen had told us to "live and work together in friendship and forgiveness". Sinn Fein’s answer was to the point “fight using whatever weapons you can get your hands on.”

In the run up to the Queen's visit the Provisional Irish Republican Army mounted a campaign of violence, hoping to force its cancellation. They organised a spate of arson attacks on Protestant-owned shops in Belfast. But she still came.

The security in 1977 was so precarious that the Queen had to stay at sea overnight and take her first ever helicopter flight to get into Belfast for a series of tightly screened engagements.

Riots broke out in Belfast as republicans protested against the Queen's visit whilst the loyalists cheered their Monarch. There was one banner on parade that still haunts me "ER Queen of Death: 1969-77 - 1,800 Dead".

The rhetoric was clear on my street: "It's an intrusion into the affairs of the Irish people. We're not British subjects. She's not our Queen. We don't want her here at all." "I wouldn't give her any medals for coming over to Northern Ireland. I think I'm braver than her. I have to live here."

At the end of the day the portrayal of Queen as the great healer of the division between loyalist and republican communities was totally wrong. The truth is she was the symbol of the division itself.

In 1977 I never dreamed that one day I would see Martin McGuinness sharing power with Ian Paisley and about to shake hands with the Queen in a gesture of reconciliation that could not be more powerful in its significance for both communities.

In her address to the people of Northern Ireland in 1977, the Queen said, "I look forward to the day when we may return and enjoy with the people of Northern Ireland some of the better and happier times so long awaited and so richly deserved."

It is not easy to forget what things were like 35 years ago in those dark and violent days from which I came from. But the transformation of Northern Ireland is remarkable.

When Mr McGuinness shakes the Queen's hand, it will suggest that day may have finally come. On the hand Mr McGuinness was a senior member of the IRA when it killed the Queen's cousin Lord Mountbatten in a bomb blast in 1979, so I think she is quite entitled to kick him in the nuts.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

Bit of a cock up on the banking front Stephen!

2012-08-03T06:59:00.000-07:00

It seems we just can’t get away from banks ruining our lives. First we had the Great Financial Crisis which still echoes around the world and now we have the RBS IT cock up. And if that wasn’t enough for one week Barclays are at the centre of a huge scandal that has already rocked their share price and is likely to draw other banks into the fray.

This sort of goings on can destroy a bank, normally, that is. But in this case the taxpayers just get hit again.

I’d like to consider the Barclays situation first of all. Last year Bob Diamond, the big cheese at Barclays, went on record saying “There was a period of remorse and apology for banks, and I think that period needs to be over. Well I’m sorry Cheesy but you are wrong. And wrong by a long way. The cost of market rigging is a fine of £290m which in real terms equates to 10 days profit at current rates. Not only is that inadequate a punishment in real terms, it is an inadequate punishment when you consider the nature of the alleged transgression, which has been described as so fundamental, so serious and so widespread.

You and I know that if we commit fraud we do bird, simple as that. Mr Diamond and his cronies apologise and forfeit this year’s bonus and firmly believe they will get away with it.

Without going into the details of this scam – because quite frankly it is way above my pay grade – the biggest losers were families on tracker mortgages. The biggest winners were of course the banks.

So who will have the balls to take on Barclays? The public has a right to know how many employees took part and how they will be punished, up to and including criminal proceedings. They should be named and shamed and in fact this has begun with the release of two names Trader C and Manager E. For fucks sake do these people believe they are above the law?

It is clear that Barclays’ staff co-ordinated and aided and abetted traders at other banks so it is expected that other chief executives as well as Cheesy Diamond will be what doctors commonly describe a condition of “shitting ones-self”.

Actually I was a little harsh on myself earlier. Barclays tampered with two key interest rates to improve their own profits repeatedly over a four year period. The practice was so widespread that staff joked about it in emails to one another. What a bunch of w*nkers. All this from a bank that through state guarantees and emergency liquidity provisions has been supported by you and me the British taxpayer.

Barclays’ staff saw themselves as being too big to play by the rules. And the likely result is that everyone else paid millions more than necessary to borrow. It is time for payback and it needs to start at the top and go down. Remember the then Government in 2008 saying we can not afford to lose these individuals to overseas companies when bonuses were being paid for failure. Well now, hopefully, we will lose a good few of them to Wormwood Scrubs and a lengthy spell of porridge.

With Bob Diamond in the nick and no bonus what about Stephen Hester, the egg head chief of RBS. You couldn’t write the script for this one. RBS have a software update and nobody can get access to their account for over a week. It was a shambles.

The story goes that due to the drive for improved profits, which made me laugh because I don’t think RBS know what one is, all the knowledgeable IT staff had been laid of in favour of outsourcing in ……wait for it…..India. Sadly, whilst they can cook a very good vindaloo their knowledge of interactions between legacy systems was somewhat lacking.

And so the RBS failed in its most basic task of providing a basic payments system – the economic purpose of having banks at all to the average Joe.

The chaos is probably the worst incident of its kind since computerisation was introduced into banks back in the 1960s. It has reduced some branches to the use of pen and ink and will almost certainly take months to clear up the mess.

Businesses and customers have been stranded, and the compensation promised by the bank will, of course, ultimately come out of taxpayers’ pockets.

So what of confidence in RBS now? If I had an account there I would almost certainly move it. And if the other seven million people do the same what will happen? In short the taxpayer will lose out yet again because the bank is pretty much government owned. Shrinking the bank and losing those profits makes our investment worth less.

Bizarrely that while moving an account is quite easy (it's easier than moving house – yet people move house more often than banks), very few people actually do. The stickiness of personal banking is observable but not really explainable by standard economic theory. It just is: and that is what makes it all very profitable for the UK banks. They get that loot in our current accounts for no interest and then lend it out at interest. Sure, your or my account might have £5 in it: but on average over all of the bank accounts in the country one estimate has it that this float earns the banks £20 billion a year.

The good news for Stephen the Egg however, is that with the emerging crisis at Barclays, consumers may conclude that all are as bad as each other and therefore will not move.

I thought there couldn’t be any more bad news on the banking front this week but alas I was wrong. And if Stephen Hester had thought about reaching for his sword then he ought to have it in his two hands by now pointing inwards.

In addition to the long-term debt downgrades from Moody’s Investors Service, RBS lost their prized “Prime-1” short term debt ratings. They are now “Prime-2” which means their ability to use short-term funding markets either to raise money for themselves or to drum up other business is constrained.

Hester has been in situ for some time now and cannot escape responsibility for any of this. I think it will be an insult if he in fact gets offered a bonus let alone he accepting one. I am sure the shareholders will enjoy a revolting meeting were it to get to that stage.

All things considered the Treasury Select Committee is going to be busy in the coming weeks. I wonder what moves Tricky Dickey Branson is plotting.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

Carr Tax not very funny

2012-08-03T06:52:00.000-07:00

“We all like to put a bit of money away for a rainy day, don’t we? But I think he is more prepared than Noah.”

It is not surprising that Carr avoided tax. As well as coming from a privileged background, he has the ‘I earned it so I’m keeping it’ attitude of somebody who grafted up the greasy pole of show business through years of relentlessly presenting the most undignified of game-shows, from Distraction, through Your Face Or Mine?, to E4’s Stick A Carrot In Your Eye For A Tenner.

Personally I haven’t seen any of them, but you can just imagine the sort of dross that makes up such shows.

Until the mountains of cash he was saving under the ingenious K2 scheme came to light, top-earning comedian Jimmy Carr was laughing all the way to the bank. As it happens, this was some distance, as his bank was located several miles offshore in Jersey.

After initially attempting to ride out the storm, Carr issued a grovelling apology which he may think will get him off the hook. But HMRC are investigating this and other schemes, which drain the country of much needed cash. And I hope they throw, not just the book but the bookcase as well at him.

His lefty pose now looks unintentionally hilarious but he’s no more hypocritical than countless performers before him who made a fortune pretending to be “one of us” and then promptly opted to protect as much as possible from the taxman.

The truth is, however rich people get, they hate paying tax. Some live abroad for a year, or years at a time just to avoid it. Bizarre really – desperate economic migrants are driven to leave their homeland because of poverty; tax exiles are driven overseas by their wealth.

David Cameron himself joined the Carr-gate tax debate by describing ‘the Jimmy Carr scheme’ as ‘morally wrong’. I wonder if whoever advised Cameron to comment on Jimmy Carr has realised what they’ve done yet. Has he been foolish to make a moral pronouncement about a comedian's tax affairs? It’s certainly a licence for journalists to rake over Tory donors' tax returns. But that doesn’t necessarily mean he was wrong to say it.

But the rich can look after themselves and I am more concerned about the tax burden on people of modest means. It is fanciful to suppose that the Government’s naming and shaming propaganda drive against avoidance will ease the burden on ordinary taxpayers. Substantial cuts in State spending are the only realistic hope of letting us keep more of what we earn.

While we are ruled by law, rather than politicians' dictat, it is simply not good enough for the Prime Minister to say schemes such as Mr Carr’s are “morally wrong”. If so, the law must be changed to make them illegal.

So back to Jimmy Carr. His gags are regularly at the expense of the less fortunate, delivered with a tone of stiff, elite condescension, and he has the kind of smug face that wouldn’t appear out of place in one of those photographs of the Old School Tie Club in which the Toffs pose in their tuxes while plotting how to gang-bang some poor sod who doesn’t know any better.

Like an expenses scandal MP who didn’t seem to realise what he was doing was wrong until he was caught, Carr has now pulled out of his ‘dodgy’ tax scheme. But is this enough to keep his career on track and can he continue to deliver effective ‘satire’ after the exposure of his morally questionable financial affairs?

Frankly I am surprised how well his career has flourished. I find him totally unfunny. His humour surrounds unpleasant personality traits or repugnant activities, none of which is in the least bit funny when delivered by a man who looks like a ventriloquist dummy. Carr’s quips about women being fat slags, gypsies being smelly, or Heather Mills McCartney only having one leg are offensive and typical of someone who has no talent.

His comment before the scandal really took hold was ‘I pay what I have to and not a penny more. I’ve not broken the law. I’ve not done anything illegal, but morally, morally…’ Well, we shall see.

Carr has poked fun at banks' tax avoidance in TV shows and tours that have earned him millions. He was among the many comedians who criticised politicians for claiming public money to pay for things such as dog food, moat cleaning and a duck house, in a scandal that dominated news headlines for most of 2009. His offence was that of hypocrisy, the only sin still recognised in the modern world. If you say one thing and do another, we condemn you without having to decide whether what you did, or what you said, is what we actually believe in.

With his reputation severely damaged and public anger mounting, Carr, who has now pulled out of the scheme, said in a statement: ‘I've made a terrible error of judgement. Although I’ve been advised the K2 Tax scheme is entirely legal, and has been fully disclosed to HMRC, I’m no longer involved in it and will in future conduct my financial affairs much more responsibly. Apologies to everyone.’ said Carr, who performed at Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee. But pointedly did not offer to pay back millions of pounds he is believed to have saved through an off-shore scheme.

Until his apology, 39-year-old Carr – who in the past has publicly mocked tax avoidance – had been one of thousands of people using a legal off-shore scheme to pay as little as 1 per cent income tax. He is believed to have been the largest beneficiary of the K2 accountancy arrangement, said to shelter £168million a year from the taxman.

Carr-gate will blow over, but in the meantime Carr would be wise to exploit both the controversy of the scandal and his role as the host who wears silly costumes while messy stuff is thrown at him. For his current theatre tour he should appear dressed as a medieval jester, imprisoned in stocks at the centre of the stage as his wronged public enact their revenge by hurling gross missiles towards his haughty raised eye browed head. Bring your own custard pies, rotting fruit and fish heads. That is something I would pay to see.

This affair is unlikely to ruin Jimmy’s career. Ken Dodd has added jokes about his brush with the taxman to his stand-up act and is as popular as ever. Harry Redknapp didn’t get the England job and has left Spurs, but is otherwise unaffected by the suggestion there was anything dodgy about squirreling away money in his dog’s name in Monaco. Let’s face it; if his career was ruined he could go back to his other job as the keyboards man in “Sparks”.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

Why do we care so much about Gibraltar and the Falklands?

2012-07-29T04:49:00.001-07:00

At the start of the Falklands War in 1982, polls suggested that few people in Britain actually knew where the Falkland Islands were. I suppose it is quite understandable given the huge distance between London and Port Stanley, the Falkland Island's capital. I seem to remember reading that the then Defence Secretary John Nott had to make use of his world globe in his office to remind him of where he was sending me and the rest of our troops.

The Falkland Islands are made up of two large islands (West and East) and about 200 smaller islands. The capital, Port Stanley, is on East Falkland on the eastern coast. It has the claim to being the most southernmost capital in the world. The islands are about 300 miles off the coast of Argentina and are 8,000 miles from Britain.

In 1982 when the Argentine attack began, the population of the islands was roughly 1800, of which 1300 were born on the islands. In 1982, the Falkland Island Company owned 43% of the land on the islands and it had a monopoly on all imports and exports. The primary export was wool and sheepskins. It was at this time that the talk of oil reserves being found off the coast of the Falklands began. Hence the invasion by a military junta that was to get the shock of its life.

British nationals first settled on the islands in the 1830’s and the islands were claimed by Britain in 1833. Argentina had always claimed them for itself. As Britain was the world’s dominant naval force in the Nineteenth Century, Argentina would not have been able to launch and sustain an invasion of the islands then. It is doubtful that any invasion was possible until much later in the Twentieth Century. By this time, the islanders simply thought of themselves as British citizens who just happened to live 8,000 miles away. In 1976, Harold Wilson, Labour Prime Minister, was warned that Argentina was sabre rattling with regards to the Falklands. In 1977, a naval force was covertly sent to the islands in a show of strength and made a suitable impression.

However, by 1982, the military junta in Buenos Aires thought that it could execute a successful invasion of the Falklands and General Leopoldo Galtieri sanctioned it. It is thought that the widely reported planned withdrawal of ‘HMS Endurance’ from the area stimulated the belief that Britain no longer had much interest in the Falklands. They were wrong!

Thirty years after the Falklands war, Argentina's president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, has told the United Nations in New York that the islands are Argentinean territory. Speaking in London, David Cameron has said Britain will not negotiate sovereignty. And also in New York, Michael Summers, a member of the islanders' assembly, has dismissed Argentina's position as colonialism. So what happens now?

David Cameron has said that the Islanders should self determine who they wish to be aligned to and as such will have no truck with Kirchner. In fact at the G20 conference David Cameron was involved in an extraordinary stand-up row with Kirchner over the future of the Falkland Islands. The South American leader appeared to attempt to thrust a package stuffed with documents about her country’s claim to the British territory into Mr Cameron’s hands. Fortunately, DC was able to repel boarders and refused to accept it, much to the fury of Kirchner. He further insisted that she respect the views of the islanders, who want to remain British.

Mr Cameron said later: ‘I told Kirchner that if she believes in democracy then she should respect the will of the people of the Falklands, and I wanted to use this opportunity to tell her this, which I did with some vigour.’ Top man!

Kirchner would do well to read the UN charter, which enshrines the principle of self-determination and that is what the Argentines should respect.

Falkland residents announced plans for a referendum next year in an attempt to fend off Argentinean claims to the territory, which have become more vocal around the 30th anniversary of the 1982 war.
The stance adopted by the Conservative Party over the Falkland Islands is very different to the stance taken by the Labour Party under Tony Blair over Gibraltar if the memoirs of Labour's former Europe Minister, Peter Hain, are to be believed. In 2002 he and Tony Blair secretly agreed with then Spanish Prime Minister, Jose Maria Aznar, to share sovereignty over Gibraltar - in exchange for Spanish support at the EU. Hain and Blair were apparently willing to defy the wishes of the Gibraltarian people in order to railroad the deal through.

Ironically, the arrangement seems to have been scuppered by hard-line Spanish military officers. Hain adds that Blair was "contemptuous" of the Gibraltarian people – something his spokesman has denied.

So is it right about self determination? Blair evidently couldn’t careless about Gibraltar and Major handed back Hong Kong to the Chinese in 1997 apparently because the lease ran out - but it didn't cover all of Hong Kong. And what of the wishes of the Hong Kong population? Stuff 'em apparently.

Britain’s legal position is clear. Gibraltar, as a result of the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, is definitely British "in perpetuity". But so was Hong Kong; the New Territories were ceded to the UK for 99 years in 1898. But Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula, up to Boundary Street, were ceded to us in perpetuity, in 1841 and 1860 respectively. Queen Victoria and the Chinese Emperor of the day ratified both cessions. The UK's legal claim on Hong Kong was actually rather stronger than its claim on the Falkland Islands. It didn't stop us handing the place over to the direct heirs and successors of the mass murderer, Mao Tse Tung.

Perhaps we become hugely attached to those territories sanctified by the spilling of British blood. This is definitely true for Gibraltar, although it was a long time ago. During the Great Siege (June 1779 – February 1783) the garrison lost over a thousand men to combined Spanish and French attacks. Mozart was so impressed by the resistance he wrote a piece of music to commemorate it.

But it's also true of Hong Kong. In December 1941, 70 years ago, British, Indian, and Canadian soldiers, alongside Hong Kong's own volunteer force, defended the colony with great skill and bravery against a Japanese force four times their size. More than 2,000 were killed in action with a further 2,500 wounded - almost a third of the 14,000-strong garrison became casualties in 17 days of heavy fighting. Those that survived then endured three-and-a-half years of brutal captivity. It did not stop us handing the place over to the Chinese.

Thirty years ago 255 British servicemen were killed in a comparatively short campaign in the Falklands and that seems to mean we can never, ever negotiate with the Argentines.

But if the British attitude to these colonies is inconsistent, the attitude of the Spanish and Argentineans to the British possessions they so covet are even more so. Both countries have spent considerable time, energy and sheer spite over the last half-century being beastly to the inhabitants of Gibraltar and the Falklands respectively. Nothing could be more self-defeating.

General Franco initiated a blockade of Gibraltar in 1969, enthusiastically continued by Spain's democratic governments for seven years after his death in 1975. Even today the Spanish authorities harass Gibraltarians at every turn with Spain even objecting to them joining Europe's governing bodies for soccer and rugby. As a result, 98 per cent of Gibraltarians voted to remain British in the 2002 referendum.

The Argentine record in the Falklands is worse. Invasion in 1982 was bad enough. Subsequently insisting that Falklands’ schoolchildren must be taught in Spanish and that all cars must drive on the right was petty in the extreme. Many of the locals who lived under the nine-week occupation felt it was only a matter of time before Argentina's brutal secret police arrived on the islands to ensure their loyalty.

I sincerely hope that a decision on self-determination in the upcoming plebiscite in the Falklands will be respected by the Argentinean government, but from the continued posturing of their president, it seems sadly unlikely to be the case. To me it's very simple really - the UN resolution is that the two countries should act diplomatically to resolve any potential conflict over ownership of these islands, but the principle of self-determination is paramount. If the islanders were to vote to be part of Argentina, I am sure that Britain would relinquish them. This would be hugely unexpected of course, which is why Argentina is trying to obfuscate the argument by making claims on the basis of proximity. This is a joke really - if that was the case then Alaska would be a part of Canada, and The Canary Islands part of Africa. Neither place wants this of course, which is why it should not happen.

Remember Argentina has never owned the Falkland Islands. It's not about fairness, or history, or proximity, or self-determination is it? In the eyes of President Kirchner, it is about oil, purely and simply. And that is why they won't back down even in the face of a plebiscite.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

Why are old people so annoying?

2012-07-28T05:25:00.000-07:00

You know when you get just one day off work a week and that happens to be a Monday and because there have been so many Bank Holidays of late then your Monday off quota has been significantly shortened. Then the last thing you want on your first Monday off for sometime is a confrontational pensioner ruining your day.

But alas it happened to me yesterday. I have been going to Chatsworth House Estate for many years now and in all that time I have never had a cross word with anyone. I have never felt aggrieved about anything and certainly not felt so pissed off that I might not go back. But thanks to a group of busy body pensioners I am now carefully considering the future destinations of my days out.

Picture the scene walking through the estate with my faithful hound - a working cocker spaniel called Archie. The sun is shining the weather is bright and the air is clean. That is until we reach the river on the north side of the House. This is a particular favourite spot of Archie's because it is here that every year they have the dog scurry challenge at the Chatsworth Show. It's a bit of fun for one and all with dogs being asked to find strategically placed dummies and return them to the owner.

Invariably a dummy ends up in the river and the dog chases after it and so I like to bring him to this point to get some practice as it were. However, on this day I had forgot to bring the dummies and so instead we had to make do with a tennis ball. Now anyone who knows anything about this breed of dog will know that they are not interested in other dogs let alone other animals, like sheep for example. Add to this the fact that for the first eighteen months of Archie's life he attended gun dog school and you get a picture of the dog's character.

Throwing the ball for Archie and watching him scamper after it is very therapeutic. His concentration is on one thing and one thing only - THE BALL. Enter the interfering busybody with a walking stick and yesterday's soup down his jumper.

"Oy - that dog should be on a lead. We've just had an incident with a dog like that worrying sheep." He bellowed with a distinct whistling sound that suggested he was short of a molar or two, hence the soup stain I suppose.

Taken aback by this impromptu outburst I responded "Well was it this dog?"

"No but it was one like it!" He shouted through salivating gums.

"Well I'm sorry, but my dog is well trained and isn't within 75 yards of any sheep."

"He should be on a lead!" He shouted in a somewhat annoying way.

So I told him to mind his own business and get back to his group. Of course this set of the other bunch who called me ignorant and several other things to boot.

Now all this brings me to my point which is “Why are Old People so Bloody Annoying?”

Before I start I ought to point out that there are several old people I know that I quite like and I am happy to engage in conversation from time to time. There's Don at the local who is 82 but still drinks like a fish and doesn't seemingly dribble at either end. I live next door to Ethel who is 84, although I have got a bone to pick with her. I read an advert in my local newspaper that said ‘Please look after your neighbours in the cold weather’. And do you know, not once has Ethel come round to see if I’m all right. And the lazy cow hasn’t taken her milk in for a fortnight!

There are several middle-aged people I like and one or two teenagers too and even some kids that I don’t mind being around. But, as a general group, old people are very annoying.

I know that one day I will be old, but I am learning the lesson now on how not to be annoying to the younger part of society. I was told I should be more compassionate and respect my elders and by and large I do if they keep out of my way. But sadly I come in to contact with them everyday and I find myself becoming less tolerant and ready to vote for any party that introduces mandatory extermination at age 65. Forget a pension book and free bus rides; get a lethal injection courtesy of the NHS.

You can’t tell the elderly anything. By virtue of having lived forever, they know it all, and have immutable opinions on absolutely everything. Like my dog being on a lead.

Old people and cars are an accident waiting to happen. It frightens the life out of me when I see some doddering old couple shuffle their way from the supermarket into the car park and spend much of what’s left of their precious time on earth trying to remember where they left their old car. This car they bought new fifteen years ago and it still only has 30,000 miles on the clock. Sadly, not one careful owner though. So they find the car and start the endless, fumbling search for their keys. Then it takes them ever so long to get the key into the lock. They always, but always have some tiny item to put into the boot, too, so they have to go through the whole procedure with 2 locks because let's face it when this car was new central locking wasn't invented. By the time they finally get themselves actually into the car, several EU countries have left the Euro and Dave has repeated every Top Gear episode at least twice. Now these people are on the highway and the fun is about to begin. Cruising along at 20 mph, running into posts and kids, but never into other old people, how strange. They are oblivious to red lights, stop signs, pedestrian crossing and other traffic. An incompetent old person not paying attention and not having the reaction times necessary to avoid a potentially dangerous situation is always a recipe for disaster. Banning old people from driving completely seems a little bit extreme. But what about people who can’t react in a timely manner, can’t make reasonable decisions, and can’t see or hear as well as other drivers? Allowing them on the road as freely as anybody else is as ridiculous as allowing elephants on the road.

Old people are always on the lookout for some misdemeanour to bring to the attention of the authorities. They’re forever calling the police on stuff like kids not walking on the side of the road facing traffic. Or alerting the postmaster general when their mail is delayed by more than 10 minutes. Or complaining to the council because they can’t sleep because someone’s cat is purring too loudly. And those who have computers only get them so they can call the help desk every day to complain about how the machine isn’t doing what they want it to. They only go to restaurants because they’re always guaranteed a rich minefield of complainables in restaurants and whilst on the subject why is there such a thing as OAP rates in restaurants. Old people are pissed off and want you to know it. They yell at you to get off their lawn and get a damned haircut when you're across the street, wearing a hat. They seem to constantly be venting hundreds of years of pent up, decrepit rage.

Old people think that just because they’re old they’re automatically interesting. Because their memory has lapsed into Alzheimer’s mode they tell you the same three stories over and over and over again every time they see you. And none of the stories are the least bit interesting. Probably, they’ve done some interesting stuff in their lives. They couldn’t have only done three things in 80 years, surely? But, it seems they have conveniently forgotten all the good stuff. Perhaps the good stuff tarnishes the image of the upholders of righteousness and moral fibre.

Old people should not be allowed to shop for food. They can’t reach anything, they can’t read the ingredient lists, they don’t understand why there are no price tags on anything anymore and they take forever in the check-out lanes. They only buy 3 items at a time because that’s all they can carry, but it takes them a good half hour to discuss each item’s price with the cashier; search for their wallet; search for the money in their wallet like it’s the first time they’ve ever used the thing; count out change to the penny (usually getting it wrong the first 3 or 4 times, thus having to start all over); and then putting everything back to where it belongs (very slowly) and looking through their grocery bag to make sure they have everything, all whilst standing in front of the cashier so she can’t carry on with the next person.

The elderly are rude. Think about. Old people pretend not to understand the concept of taking turns. They blithely jump queues on buses or in stores. They interrupt cashiers or restaurant servers who are busy with someone else, and demand to have their problem seen to immediately. They push and poke and prod people with all their sticks and chariots and wheelie scaffoldy thing. And they get away with it all because who’s going to have a go at an oldie? And yet when a kid says "Hang on a minute" what do we hear: "Typical, no respect." "Ignorant." Sound like a day out in Chatsworth?

Why do old people smell? If you've ever been trapped in close quarters with a not-altogether-there senior, some place like the back of a queue in a shop or a lift then you may well have noticed the sensual smell of stale urine and mothballs with maybe some Old Spice and lavender thrown in for good measure. Accounting for the urine smell isn't entirely difficult. Reports say upwards of 53 percent of elderly people suffer some incontinence as a result of losing bladder elasticity with age, which in turn means you simply can't hold as much as you used to resulting in the occasional splatter across the inside of old guy slacks. The other ingredient to the crusty old bouquet is much more exotic and potentially comes as a result of the psychology of being ancient. For whatever reason, the older you get the more you never want to throw shit out. Hoarding is actually a serious issue for a number of elderly people. They have a difficult time understanding that those stacks of newspapers from 1963 really aren't of any use. But shit gets musty and to an 80 year old the natural thing to do is to scatter mothballs about like fairy dust. Accordingly everything grandma owns smells like it's been hidden in a trunk since VE day.

Perhaps there is an explanation for all of this. Maybe this generation were complete tools when they were young as well.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

If you want to know the time ask a policeman and he’ll ring the speaking clock!

2012-01-24T07:19:00.001-08:00

We now know, thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, that the Metropolitan Police has spent more than £35,000 on calls to the speaking clock in the last two years.

It sounds a lot and it is a lot. There is no doubt spending £35,000 on calls to the speaking clock, in an age where every mobile phone and PC constantly displays the time, seems ridiculous. But the number perhaps warrants closer examination.

The Metropolitan Police is a huge organisation: it has more than 35,000 officers and PSCOs, plus more than 13,000 civilian staff. Even trivial amounts of spending per officer quickly add up and that surely is the point.

The force spent £16,879 on calls to the service in 2010/11. At 31p per call, that's just fewer than 54,500 calls over the year.

That works out as 1.5 calls to the speaking clock for each officer, or in other words represents each officer in the force using the service just once or twice each year.

Is that unreasonable? Accurate time is occasionally important to police, when noting chronologies in reports or ahead of operations. It seems almost trivial but if you can save £35,000 per annum by looking at your mobile phone or PC for the time instead of ringing TIM what other savings could be made.

The Metropolitan Police is a huge organisation with a budget in excess of £4 billion each year. Given its scale, there is huge scope for aspects of its spending, outside of context, to look ridiculous in terms of per employee ratio. But no doubt there are areas of waste within the organisation, and elsewhere in the public sector.

Grabbing numbers without putting them in context fires can be misleading, particularly at a time when the public sector faces significant cuts in budgets and staff, but ask yourself this – how many times have you called TIM in the last 20 years? Never, right?

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

Get your t*ts out but don’t expect me to pay!

2012-01-24T07:15:00.000-08:00

What another fine mess we find ourselves in with the PIP implants scandal.

Typical of today's society when everyone is blaming the Government because some French company sold sub standard silicone bags to a bunch of over-paid surgeons who carried cosmetic surgery on a group of women who thought that having enlarged breasts would improve their lives and it has all gone wrong or has it?

"Inspiring Confidence in You," says the poster in the reception of the Harley Medical Group clinic in central London.

But the firm's refusal to replace the implants of women who it fitted with PIP implants will hardly do that.

According to the company’s chairman they do not have the resources, the operating theatres or the surgeons to provide the replacements.

The company carried out by far the largest number of implant operations using PIP implants - 13,900, between September 2001 and March 2010.

Harley Medical Group has 31 clinics in the UK and Ireland and says it does around 2,000 breast augmentation operations a year.

The Government say private firms have a moral responsibility to replace PIP implants free of charge if that's what women want. But Harley Medical Group says it is the Government who has the moral responsibility "as they have inflicted the problem on clinics, surgeons and patients".

Why? Because the medical regulator the MHRA had failed to ensure that the PIP implants were safe.

The implants had a European CE mark of safety - similar to those handed out to toy manufacturers. But the safety tests are not nearly as strict as those governing medicines.

Now the fact that it carries a European CE mark of safety takes the level of responsibility to another level. Let’s say Brussels.

But if you buy a car that has a MOT (which means the car should be safe) and it turns out to be a dog with fleas, do you immediately blame the Government. No, of course you don’t.

It is the MHRA's responsibility to act when safety issues surrounding implants emerge. It says it did, although there has been criticism from other quarters too, but that seems to be part of the blame shift culture we have developed so well in this country over the past 15 years.

The NHS in England will remove PIP implants if firms refuse to do so, but in Wales’s ministers says the health service will remove and replace them. That is until they get independence of course.

The Harley Medical Group said it would provide free replacement implants to the NHS, but Andrew Lansley seems certain to reject this.

Another major provider of PIP implants, Transform, has also said it will not replace implants for free. Like the Harley Medical Group it says it will do the surgery for cost - up to £3,000.

Some firms which did a small number of PIP implants, BMI Healthcare, Nuffield Health and Spire have said they will remove and replace them free of charge.

This is a highly confusing situation for women. Whether they get their implants replaced now depends not only on who did their surgery in the first place, but also on where they live.

And don't forget that the official advice in the UK is that there is no medical need to remove PIP implants.

The PIP implants contained industrial grade silicone which did not undergo medical tests. So there are no guarantees about its long term safety.

But the recommendation that implants be removed by authorities in France, Germany and elsewhere is not based on strong evidence of harm but rather the potential that there could be problems in the future.

It seems perfectly obvious to me what the women should do. Clearly the silicone implants were inferior and not fit for purpose. Consequently, plastic surgeons that fitted the inferior product are in the first instance liable. Your contract is with the person who carried out the surgery so sue them.

Why did cosmetic surgeons choose this product in the first place? I don’t know, but I would bet it was cheaper than other products. Cheap means more profit. These companies were quite happy to take your money and profit. Consequently they should pick up the bill for their cheap boob job.

It is an unsatisfactory situation. Women will have to make a judgement - do they want the implants removed as a precaution - bearing in mind that any surgery carries an element of risk? But there were more than 9,000 women in the UK that had surgery last year and if I was a lawyer I would contacting everyone to bring about a case against the likes of Harley Medical Group who are happy to profit but ignore responsibility.

I would presume that these implants carry a guarantee – would they renege on that too?

Hopefully, the adverse publicity will lead to fewer breast enhancement operations in future – big breasts aren’t everything.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

Classic in close up - MARK ROTHKO

2012-01-10T08:57:00.000-08:00

MARK ROTHKO (1903-1970) – The influence of Rothko in the history of painting is yet to be quantified, because the truth is that almost 40 years after his death the influence of Rothko's large, dazzling and emotional masses of color continues to increase in many painters of the 21st century.

Born Marcus Rothkovitch in Dvinsk, Russia, Rothko emigrated to the US in 1913. He studied briefly at Yale and in New York, although he considered this to have had little influence on his painting. rothko's style took many years to evolve. His early figurative works included portraits and psychologically-infused urban scenes, which he exhibited with the American expressionist group, The Ten.

Rothko embraced ancient myth as he moved into a surrealist phase in the late 1930's, drawing on them as subjects for his increasingly abstract works. By 1946, he moved into pure abstraction, painting amorphous shapes that would coalesce into his familiar rectangles on fields of colour by 1949. Although the works were formally quite simple, Rothko executed them with a meticulous eye for colour, balance and brushwork that gave them a dramatic presence beyond their initial appearance.

He was pleased that viewers ofte found looking at his paintings a deeply emotional experience. While he maintained the essential elements of his signature style, Rothko's paintings became generally larger, darker and more meditative in the last dozen years of his life.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

Classic in close up - HENRI MATISSE

2012-01-10T08:55:00.000-08:00

HENRI MATISSE (1869-1954) – Art critics tend to regard Matisse as the greatest exponent of twentieth century painting, only surpassed by Picasso. This is an exaggeration, although the almost pure use of color in some of his works strongly influenced many of the following avant-gardes.

French painter, printmaker and designer; the dominant figure in the Fauvist movement. Initially a lawyer's clerk, Matisse turned to art in 1890. His first teacher, Borguerreau, was a disappointment, but he learned a great deal from his second master, Gustave Moreau, a Symbolist painter with a taste for exotic colouring.

Matisse's early works were mainly Impressionist or Neo-Impressionist in character but, after painting trips to the Mediterranean, he began to employ more vivid colours, using them to create an emotional impact, rather than simply to transcribe nature.

After years of failure, Matisse and his friends made their breakthrough at the Salon d'Automne of 1905. Critics were overwhelmed by the dazzling canvases on display and dubbed the group Les Fauves ('the wild beasts').

Matisse continued to find his greatest inspiration from painting on the Riviera, but he also travelled widely, visiting Morocco, america and Spain. He decorated a chapel in Vence in southern France, in gratitude for a nun who had nursed him, and he experimented with 'cut-outs' (pictures formed from coloured paper shapes, rather than paint).

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

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Classic in close up - ÉDOUARD MANET

2012-01-10T08:54:00.000-08:00

ÉDOUARD MANET (1832-1883) – Manet was the origin of Impressionism, a revolutionary in a time of great artistic revolutions. His (at the time) quite polemical "Olympia" or "Déjeuner sur l'Herbe" opened the way for the great figures of Impressionism.

He was an influential French painter, regarded by many as the inspirational force behind the Impressionist movement. Coming from a wealthy family, manet trained under the history painter Couture, but was chiefly influenced by his study of the Old Masters, particularly Velazquez. His aim was to achieve conventional success through the Salon, but ironically two controversial pictures cast him in the role of artistic rebel.

"Olympia" or "Déjeuner sur l'Herbe" were both updated versions of Renaissance masterpieces, but the combination of classical nudes and a modern context scandalized Parisian critics. This very modernity, however, appealed strongly to a group of younger artists, who were determined to paint scenes of modern life rather than subjects from the past. This circle of friends who gathered round Manet at the Cafe Guerbois were to become the Impressionists.

Manet was equivocal about the new movement. He enjoyed the attention of his proteges, but still hoped for official success and, as a result, did not participate in the Impressionist exhibitions. Even so, he was eventually persuaded to try open-air painting, and his later pictures display a lighter palette and a freer touch.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

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Classic in close up - JACKSON POLLOCK

2012-01-03T07:30:00.000-08:00

JACKSON POLLOCK (1912-1956) – The major figure of American Abstract Expressionism, Pollock created his best works, his famous drips, between 1947 and 1950. After those fascinating years, comparable to Picasso’s blue period or van Gogh’s final months in Auvers, he abandoned the drip, and his latest works are often bold, unexciting works.

Pollock grew up in the American West, becoming familiar with Native American art at an early age. He was briefly influenced by Benton and the Regionalists, but learned more from Siqueiros and the Mexican muralists. He was impressed by their expressive, almost violent use of paint. Pollock also began to explore the possibilities of Jungian psychology. This started as an aspect of his private life - psychotherapy was one of the many treatments he tried for his longterm alcoholism - but it also fuelled his art. For, like the Surrealists, he adopted the idea of automatic painting as a mirror of the subconscious.

After years of isolation and critical neglect, Pollock's experiments bore fruit in the late 1940's. By 1947, he had perfected the 'drip' technique which made him famous. He placed his canvas on the floor and covered it in trails of paint, poured directly from the can. This process was carried out in an artistic frenzy of 'Action Painting', comparable with the Indian ritual dances which he had witnessed as a boy.

His paintings offer no articulate meaning, but they are fraught with energy, tension, passion and drama. Pollock's output slowed in the 1950's, and he was killed in a car crash in 1956.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

Classic in close up - MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI

2012-01-03T07:29:00.000-08:00

MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI (1475-1564) – Michelangelo, along with Picasso, is the greatest artistic genius of all time, but the fact is that Michelangelo defined himself as "sculptor", and even his painted masterpiece (the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel) are often defined as 'painted sculptures'. Nevertheless, that unforgettable masterpiece is enough to guarantee him a place of honour in the history of painting.

Italian painter, sculptor and poet, one of the greatest artists of the Renaissance and a forerunner of Mannerism. Michelangelo was raised in Florence, where he briefly trained under Ghirlandaio. Soon his obvious talent brought him to the notice of important patrons. By 1490, he was producing sculpture for Lorenzo di Medici and, a few years later, he began his long association with the papacy.

Michelangelo's fame proved a double-edged sword. He was often inveigled into accepting huge commissions, which either lasted years or went unfinished. The most notorious of these projects was the Tomb of Julius II, which occupied the artist for over 40 years.

Michelangelo always considered himself primarily a sculptor, and he was extremely reluctant to take on the decoration of the Sistine Chapel. Fortunately, he was persuaded, and the resulting frescoes are among the greatest creations in western art. The ceiling alone took four years (1508 - 12), while the Last Judgement (1536 - 43) was added later on the alter wall. In these, Michelangelo displayed the sculptural forms and the awesome power, which made him the most revered artist of the time.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

Classic in close up - PAUL GAUGUIN

2012-01-03T07:27:00.000-08:00

PAUL GAUGUIN (1848-1903) – One of the most fascinating figures in the history of painting, his works moved from Impressionism (soon abandoned) to a colourful and vigorous symbolism, as can be seen in his 'Polynesian paintings'. Matisse and Fauvism could not be understood without the works of Paul Gauguin.

Although he was born in Paris, Gauguin spent his early childhood in Peru, returning to France in 1855. He worked for a time as a stockbroker, painting only as a hobby, until the stock market crash of 1882 prompted a dramatic change of career.

His first pictures were in the Impressionist style, influenced in particular by his friend, Camille Pissarro. Increasingly, though, Gaugin became dissatisfied with the purely visual emphasis of the movement, and tried to introduce a greater degree of symbolism and spirituality into his work.

Inspired by Japanese prints, he also developed a new style, coupling bold splashes of bright, unmixed colour with simplified, linear designs. At the same time, haunted by memories of his Peruvian childhood, Gauguin developed a growing fascination for exotic and 'primitive' cultures.

Initially, he was able to satisfy this need in Brittany where, inspired by the region's distinctive Celtic traditions, he produced The Vision after the Sermon, his first great masterpiece. Then in 1891, he moved to the French colony of Tahiti. Dogged by poverty and ill health, he spent most of his later life in this area, producing the paintings for which he is best known today.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

Classic in close up - FRANCISCO DE GOYA

2012-01-03T07:25:00.000-08:00

FRANCISCO DE GOYA (1746-1828) - Goya is an enigma. In the whole History of Art few figures are as complex as the artist born in Fuendetodos, Spain. Enterprising and indefinable, a painter with no rival in all his life, Goya was the painter of the Court and the painter of the people. He was a religious painter and a mystical painter. He was the author of the beauty and eroticism of the 'Maja desnuda' and the creator of the explicit horror of 'The Third of May, 1808'. He was an oil painter, a fresco painter, a sketcher and an engraver. And he never stopped his metamorphosis.

He was raised in the small town Fuendetodos near Saragossa, Spain. Frequently involved in parochial gang fights, he fled to Madrid in 1765 after a brawl in which three youths were killed. As a result of continued sparring he left Madrid precipitately, joining a troupe of itinerant bull-fighters and eventually reaching Rome, where he resumed his studies in art.

In 1798 he returned to Spain as a designer for the royal tapestry factory and executed a number of frescoes drawn from contemporary life, asa well as a series of satirical etchings. In 1799 he was appointed court painter to Charles IV, which resulted in some of his most notable portraits.

After the French invasion (1808) he sided at first with the invaders, but secretly sketched their atrocities, which resulted in both full-scale canvasses and numerous etchings. In 1824 he moved to Bordeaux where, in old age, he produced some of his finest genre paintings.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

Classic in close up - VINCENT VAN GOGH

2012-01-03T07:21:00.000-08:00

VINCENT VAN GOGH (1853-1890) – Few names in the history of painting are now as famous as Van Gogh, despite the complete neglect he suffered in life. His works, strong and personal, are one of the greatest influences in the twentieth century painting, especially in German Expressionism.

A leading Post-Impressionist and forerunner of Expressionism. Vincent's first job was for a firm of art dealers, but he was sacked after a failed affair affected his ability to work. After a brief stint as a teacher, he became a lay preacher in a Belgian mining district.

Here again he was fired when the Church became concerned at his over-zealous attempts to helpthe poor. Vincent had at least found his true vocation: illustrating the plight of the local peasantry.

Previously influenced by Millet, in 1886 Van Gogh went to Paris where his style changed dramatically. Under the combined impact of Impressionism and Japanese prints, his pallette lightened and he began to employ bold simplications of form. Like Guaguin, he also used colours symbolically, rather than naturalistically.

With financial help from his brother, Theo, Vincent moved to the South of France. Gauguin joined him but the pair soon clashed, hastening Van Gogh's mental collapse. Despite his illness he continued working at a frenzied pace until his suicide in July 1890.

Van Gogh sold only one painting in his lifetime, but his work has since become the most popular and sought after of any modern artist.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

The Real Tracey Emin

2011-12-31T05:13:00.000-08:00

I once saw Tracey Emin described as a Badass and True Artist and that maybe correct but I saw an interview she gave to the BBC last week and I think there is more to it than that.

What a person looks like and acts like says a lot about themselves and in the case of an artist, about their art. Tracey appears risky, honest, and crazy. She doesn't really care what people think about her and neither do I for that matter and this shows in her image. But it is not just that.

She said that if she wasn't an artist then she would be the best entrepreneur ever and to be fair she isn't doing a bad job now. My opinion of her work isn't good but it sells and sells for a lot of money.

She is highly intelligent, thoughtful and incredibly articulate. Tracey is class-blind, which is one of the many things I admire about her. You have to be really stupid to think that Tracey Emin is stupid.She is not afraid to expose herself. She is provocative but she has something to say.

Emin is renowned for her honesty, which for some is seen as either a cheap publicity stunt or vulgar exhibitionism - both of these ideas are incorrect. Emin is a dynamic, blunt and intelligent artist and I will now look at her in a totally different light.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk