One in four lap dancers has a degree, study finds

August 27th, 2010   by Justin

The first academic research project into lap dancing has found that, rather than being uneducated young women who have been coerced into the industry, one in four dancers has a degree and has been attracted by the money.

Dancers took home an average of £232 a shift after paying commission and fees to the club, with most working between two and four shifts a week – giving them annual incomes of between £24,000 and £48,000 a year.

The researchers found no evidence of trafficking in the industry, and concluded that career and economic choices were motivations for dancing rather than drug use or coercion.

Aspiring actresses, models and artists used exotic dancing as a career strategy which fitted alongside their other work, training or studies.

Unemployed new graduates – mainly with arts degrees – were also dancing because they could not find graduate jobs and found that lap dancing paid much better than bar work.

The research by Dr Teela Sanders and Kate Hardy, from the University of Leeds, found the vast majority of dancers reported high rates of job satisfaction.

The main attraction of the work was the flexibility it offered to combine different work options and studying.

However, the researchers also found dancers' welfare was often disregarded. They called for better regulation to improve dancers' safety and security, including the banning of private booths in clubs, arguing that women could be in danger when alone with customers or that standards could be lowered by women offering more than was allowed in dances. Dancers were also open to financial exploitation by the clubs who could impose charges and fines.

One dancer told researchers: "There's not enough security. I know of girls who have been raped and abused at work. You cannot go to the police as you are a stripper, so there's no legal standing."

The research comes at a pivotal time for lap dancing clubs. After an explosion of clubs across UK high streets, a change in the law earlier this year saw their reclassification as sexual entertainment venues, giving local authorities more powers to limit the number of clubs in their area and to take objections into consideration.

The change in the licensing laws governing lap-dancing clubs came after a campaign by the Fawcett Society and Object, the women's rights organisations. They have welcomed the change in the law but called for it to go further, saying "lap-dance clubs are a form of commercial sexual exploitation and promote the sexist view that women are sex objects".

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Infiniti announces M35h 'driver's hybrid'

August 26th, 2010   by Justin

Infiniti has announced that it will introduce the M35h saloon, a so-called "driver's hybrid" in Europe and the US in 2011. The message is very similar to that used to sell rival Lexus hybrids, which stresses the performance, rather than economy, strengths of the technology.

The M35h will pair a 3.5 litre V6 petrol engine with a 68-horsepower electric motor embedded in the car's seven-speed automatic transmission. Infiniti says that its hybrid system is a fairly simple set-up, but like Toyota's hybrids, and unlike Honda's, it still has the ability to operate in "electric-only" mode for short distances with the petrol engine decoupled. Like most recent electric cars, the M35h uses lithium-ion battery technology, which Infiniti says allows for a faster charge/discharge response, which means that electric power will be provided more of the time and at higher speeds than in other hybrids.

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Labour's battle of the brothers gets personal

August 25th, 2010   by Justin

David Miliband will today make his strongest criticism of his younger brother Ed with the Labour leadership contest getting personal as it reaches a critical stage.

The former foreign secretary will suggest his brother is pandering to Labour's core vote rather than reaching out to the middle classes and that his strategy will keep the party in opposition rather than return it to power.

David Miliband will set out clear dividing lines between him and his brother, seen as the two front-runners in the race to succeed Gordon Brown. Ballot papers will be sent out next week and the result announced on 25 September.
The shadow Foreign Secretary will say that Labour must be an alternative government as well as an effective Opposition. "Opposition is necessary but insufficient. At worst it can take us back into our comfort zone – and our pantomime role in politics," he will say. "We need not just to oppose this Government. We need to defeat them."

David Miliband will insist that he is the best candidate to prevent the Government painting his party as Old Labour. "We need to break out of the mould the Coalition is trying to put us in," he will say. "Their attacks on our record are only the first phase of their campaign. They seek to make Labour irrelevant. I will not let them."

He will say that Labour's leadership contest has spent, "a lot of time looking inwards and backwards, when we need to look outwards and forwards". He will pledge to look "outside our tent" and talk about the change that Britain, rather than the party, needs.

Calling on Labour to shift to the centre ground, he will say: "We must look forwards for new ideas and outwards for a new coalition of voters..

"We are pigeonholed as spendthrift when we need to be prudent; we are seen as accreting power to the state when in fact our mission is to empower individuals, communities and businesses; and we are seen as the establishment when we need to be the insurgents." Yesterday he won the support of his 100th Labour MP.

Ed Miliband, the shadow Energy and Climate Change Secretary, moved to head off his brother's criticism by insisting he is "the moderniser". He said that, since 1997, Labour had lost 1.7 million middle-class voters. But he argued that Labour had lost a total of 5 million voters, with the largest losses amongst the C2, and D and E social classes.

Ed Miliband said: "I am the only candidate who can reach out to those whom we have lost.

"To those middle-class voters who have switched to the Lib Dems I say look at how Labour is changing."

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Jane's Emmy Fashion: Style Showdown

August 24th, 2010   by Justin

Jane Lynch hit up two different Emmy events this weekend in L.A. -- and actually wore a dress to one of 'em!

First, the "Glee" star stepped out of her comfort zone and went to the Creative Arts Emmys in a glittery, silver gown before going to an Emmy kick-off party last night in one of her signature suits.

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The avenger with truth on his side

August 23rd, 2010   by Justin

In one of the biggest changes to the internet in recent years, companies' websites are to be checked for accuracy and decency for the first time. Until now, businesses online have been able to make false claims for cut-price holidays, computers and other goods and services on their own websites with little prospect of action by trading standards officers.

But Guy Parker, the chief executive of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), said the organisation would monitor and regulate such claims in future. The change follows the biggest shake-up of advertising codes in 50 years, which will bring in tougher rules on marketing to children and environmental claims and allow the advertising of condoms before the 9pm watershed. A plan to allow commercial pregnancy advice services to advertise on television has been delayed.

The extension of the ASA's digital remit, set to be announced next month, is separate to that shake-up which comes into force on 1 September. At present, Britain's advertising regulator rules only on banner ads and other conventional online advertising. As well as bringing a swathe of banks, energy suppliers and supermarkets under its rules on truthfulness, decency and misleading customers, it will allow campaigners to challenge company claims, such as the environmental-friendliness of cars or the healthiness of fast food.

In the ASA's headquarters on High Holborn, central London, Mr Parker, 39, acknowledged there had been a regulatory gap online which had infuriated the public. "We've got a situation over the past two or three years where we've been receiving around 2,000 complaints a year about marketing communications on companies' own websites, from members of the public mostly, and we're having to turn them away because they're not subject to the codes," he said.

"And members of the public quite reasonably say: 'Why not? It looks like advertising to me. They're making claims similar to those made in conventional ads, why isn't there regulatory system doing something about that?' "

Around 80 per cent of complaints about websites are because customers feel mislead, most often to do with the sale of ordinary goods and services such as computers and holidays. According to Mr Parker, politicians have been keen to plug the regulatory gap because of concern about more sensitive issues such as alcohol and gambling.

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Chan, the Man

August 21st, 2010   by Justin

“Enter Charlie Chan” is the title that Earl Derr Biggers gave to Chapter 7 of his novel “The House Without a Key,” published serially in the Saturday Evening Post in 1925, and set in Hawaii, where Biggers—a Harvard Lampoon-er who, before he started writing novels, mainly wrote humor for a magazine called Boston Traveler—had once gone for his health. Honolulu: ukulele music, ginger blossoms, coconut palms, grass mats, a luau. Miss Minerva Winterslip, a Boston spinster far from home, discovers, on a cot on her veranda, a dead body in white pajamas. A lizard skitters over the corpse, leaving a trail of tiny crimson footprints. The spinster, shaken and trembling, telephones the dead man’s brother, Amos, who promptly summons the authorities. A police captain and a coroner arrive, followed by a third man, of appearance most curious: “He was very fat indeed, yet he walked with the light dainty steps of a woman. His cheeks were as chubby as a baby’s, his skin ivory tinted, his black hair close-cropped, his amber eyes slanting.”
“Amos!” cried Miss Minerva. “That man—why he—”
“Charlie Chan,” Amos explained. “I’m glad they brought him. He’s the best detective on the force.”
“But—he’s Chinese!”

Miss Minerva, overcome, collapses. Chan, despite being as chubby as a baby and as dainty as a woman and being, really, anything but a man, walks away with the chapter, the novel, and Biggers’s career. But first he inspects the scene on Miss Minerva’s veranda. “No knife are present in neighborhood of crime,” he reports, in inexplicably bludgeoned English spoken in a “high, sing-song voice.” The captain assigns him the case. “The slant eyes blinked with pleasure. ‘Most interesting,’ murmured Chan.” Miss Minerva balks. Chan steps forward and gives the lady from Boston a stare. “Humbly asking pardon to mention it,” he says, smiling and bowing. “I detect in your eyes slight flame of hostility. Quench it, if you will be so kind.”

A star was born. The honorable Chinese detective from Honolulu would appear in five more Biggers novels, and long before the seventh chapter. The Ohio-born Biggers, who knew very little about Hawaii and less about China, found the success of his character mystifying. Once, when a reporter wrote to ask him how he had come up with Charlie Chan, Biggers wrote back, in Chan’s voice:

Boss looks me over, and puts me in a novel, The House Without a Key. “You are minor character, always,” he explains. “No major feelings, please. The background is your province—keep as far back as is humanly possible.” Story starts to begin serial career, and public gets stirred up. They demand fuller view of my humble self. “What is the approximate date of beginning of next Charlie Chan story?” they inquire of the boss. And is my face red?
Boss glares at me, plenty gloomy. “Good Lord!” he cries, “am I saddled with you for the remainder of my existence?”
“You could be saddled with horse,” I bristle.

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I was speechless, but at least it shows he has a conscience

August 20th, 2010   by Justin

I was speechless at first. I suppose when you get that sort of news about a man who you dislike so intensely because of what he has done and then suddenly you hear that he is going to donate the money, you wonder what is going on.

But I took a moment to reflect and think rationally about it. And upon reflection it is exactly what he should do. He should not keep a penny of that money and it is quite right it should go to a service charity.

I still hold him to account for Iraq. I was in the Chilcot Inquiry when he was asked whether he had any regrets and it made me very angry, along with the other families, that he just couldn't say sorry.

But at the same time I think that donating the money to the Battle Back Challenge Centre is exactly the sort of thing he should do.

One does think that it is the effect, one hopes, of a guilty conscience at work. But at least that would say he had a conscience and he is thinking about the consequences of what he decided to do and that is why he is donating the money.

I am only sad that he did not think about giving some of the money to the other major service charity, SSAFA (Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association), which is helping grieving families. While this donation will help injured servicemen and women it will not do the same for the families, not just the parents and spouses but the grandparents and siblings who have been left with the same trauma. It would have been an enormous help if he could have thought about them as well.

When Tony Blair met my wife, Maureen, he asked what he could do and she said 'you could help the families' but that seems to have fallen on deaf ears."

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The death of karen Woo – by the man who survived

August 16th, 2010   by Justin

They were resting in the shade of trees, exhausted but relieved that they had managed to get their vehicles through a swollen river when the attackers appeared. From nowhere, men began shouting orders and firing over the medical team's heads.

Tom Little, a doctor who had dedicated 40 years of his life to helping the Afghans, called out "What's happening?" before a blow to the head with an AK-47 rifle sent him reeling to the ground. As he struggled to get up, he was fatally shot in the chest. One by one, the nine other members of his team were executed as they tried in vain to shield themselves from bullets and grenades.

For the first time, the lone survivor of the killing of 10 members of the International Assistance Mission (IAM) – which included the British doctor Karen Woo – has described the horror of their last moments.

Dr Woo, a "vibrant, energetic and dedicated" 36-year-old who was due to marry this week, had ignored pleas from friends and family, determined that the essential nature of the work outweighed the perils. Her body and those of six Americans, two Afghans, and one German, were found in the Koran Wa Munjan district of Badakhshan on 6 August.

The IAM team had spent the previous two weeks covering about 100 miles – much of it on foot and horseback – through the Hindu Kush mountains, bringing medical care to impoverished villagers in Nuristan province. The day before they were killed, the team was guided back by locals to their vehicles, so they could start the final leg of their trip home.

They soon stopped to give three men a lift, a charitable courtesy in the rugged and remote area. Two of the men set off on their way when the vehicles were blocked by a river, while the third "quickly disappeared", Safiullah explained.

Dr Little, the team leader, and another member waded into the waters to find a shallow place for the vehicles to cross safely. A short while later, they were resting in a forested area in the narrow valley, preparing themselves for the long trip back through Badakhshan province and on to the Afghan capital.

Suddenly ten gunmen shouting "satellite, satellite" – a demand to surrender their phones – appeared and the driver recognised the third pedestrian from earlier. They seemed to be motivated, skilled and organised militants, some wearing commando-style gear, he said.

After killing Dr Little, the gunmen turned their attention to two of the three female members of the team who were hiding inside one of the vehicles and threw a grenade at it, killing them both. Then they shot the team's Afghan cook, who had used luggage to barricade himself under the car. As the gunmen murdered the rest of the group one by one, the driver begged for his life, raising his arms in the air as he recited verses from the Koran. Safiullah believed their commander – a "tyrant with a cruel face" – was Pakistani because he yelled "Jaldee! Jaldee!", or hurry up, a term more common over the border than in Afghanistan. But the rest of the gunmen seemed to come from Nuristan province because they conversed in the local dialect Pashaye.

Asked why the gunman did not spare his fellow Afghans, the driver speculated the cook might have been targeted because they thought he had a satellite phone and the second man, a guard, had been wearing a head scarf similar to a bodyguard.

"They had made a plan," Safiullah recalled. "It was a very organised group. They had leadership. They were well-organised. They were militants. If it's 100 years later and I see them, I'll know them."

The killers took his wedding ring and $50 from his pocket before loading him down with weapons and luggage for an eight-hour walk. On a radio, one of the gunmen reported back: "Everything's finished. We killed them."

After being met by another group, the driver was interrogated about his faith, family and why he worked for foreigners before a gunman kicked him to the ground and told him he was free.

Fearful they would hunt him down and kill him, he initially clung to one of the gunmen's legs before eventually running for his life. Exhausted and having not eaten for two days, he was resting by a large rock when an older shepherd offered to take him back to his house in the Naw village, where the authorities found him.

Back at the scene of the murders, the young driver helped police load the bodies of his former colleagues into the two remaining four-wheeled drive vehicles to start their journey back to Kabul.

"Psychologically, I am not well," Saifullah admitted. "My concern is about my life. I'm not feeling safe." Lowering his eyes, he continued: "In the history of my life. I will never forget this."

He said he did not know whether he could go back to helping Western aid agencies: his attackers had warned him not to have anything to do with foreigners or the Afghan authorities.

While the killings were initially blamed on a robbery, the Taliban claimed the credit for them, insisting the workers were trying to convert people to Christianity, a statement IAM strenuously denied. Dirk Frans, executive director of the NGO, has since said IAM believes its workers were victims of "an opportunistic ambush by a group of non-local fighters".
He said he would give his "best professional military advice" to Mr Obama about the July 2011 deadline, adding: "I think the President has been quite clear in explaining that it's a process, not an event, and that it's conditions-based. It would be premature to have any kind of assessment at this juncture about what we may or may not be able to transition."

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Civil servants' £3,450 bill for 'jazz theory of management'

August 13th, 2010   by Justin

Civil servants spent thousands of pounds of public money on jazz workshops, Indian head massages and trips to Blackpool Pleasure Beach and Newmarket Racecourse, the most detailed breakdown of government spending so far revealed yesterday.

Communities and Local Government became the first department to release details of all spending over £500 as part of a new drive for transparency.

All government departments are going to have to publish details of spending on items worth more than £25,000 from November. But the communities department has gone further and released information about spending on items worth more than £500, because this is the disclosure rule that will apply to councils from later this year

The figures revealed that the Government Offices for the Regions ran up bills of more than £100,000 on market research and polling last year. It also spent more than £1,600 on massages for staff and £539 on an away-day trip to Blackpool Pleasure Beach.

A further £3,450 was spent with Improwise, a company which claims to use a live jazz quartet to "demonstrate a range of skills, techniques and issues in a way which is unusual, inspiring, memorable and always effective".

Local Government Minister, Bob Neill, said: "It seems quite literally that the Government Offices for the Regions were taking the taxpayer for a ride. They were living it up at the taxpayers' expense while thousands of households were struggling to make ends meet."

The department spent a total of £314m in 2009/10, of which £635,000 was spent on taxis and chauffeur driven cars. There was a £16m bill for marketing, advertising, promotion and events and nearly £310,000 on catering and food.

How communities and local government spent its money

£16m marketing

£635,000 taxis and chauffeurs

£310,000 catering and food

£75,000 paid to sculptor Colin Wilbourn for a miners' memorial dedicated to those who worked at the former Lambton Cokeworks in Sunderland

£19,105 flowers and plants for Homes and Communities Agency

£19,000 photography by The Standards Board for England

£17,000 DCLG event at the four-star Rubens Hotel, opposite Buckingham Palace

£13,000 catering commissioned from Manchester United

£8,012 event at Newmarket Race Course for the Audit Commission

£4,076 an event at a luxury family hotel, the Ickworth Hotel in Suffolk

£3,450 improvise live jazz workshops

£1,673 Stress Angels, a company specialising in corporate massages

£626.75 a trip to Attenborough Nature Centre, near Nottingham

£539 an away day to Blackpool Pleasure Beach

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Turpin tempted to York by rich International pickings

August 12th, 2010   by Justin

Considering the fate of his namesake on the Knavesmire, connections of Dick Turpin yesterday showed a commendable indifference to past omens in making an expensive supplementary entry for their colt in the Juddmonte International Stakes on Tuesday. The highwayman was the most notorious among many unfortunates led to the gallows at York, in 1739, but John Manley was undaunted as he forked out £50,000 to add his colt to a race that will take him over an uncharted distance.

Dick Turpin has a speedy pedigree and has never run beyond a mile, over which trip he won the Prix Jean Prat last time out, ending a sequence of three consecutive seconds in Group One company. But Richard Hannon explained that Manley felt the gamble was warranted by prize-money of £470,000 already plundered by Dick Turpin this season. "John takes the view that the horse owes him nothing, and is keen to have a go," the trainer said. "Full marks to John for being sporting enough to have a crack, but Richard Hughes said after Chantilly that the colt would get a mile and a quarter, and feels that York is the perfect track to try out his stamina. Dick Turpin is staying in training next year, so if he does stay it will increase our options. If he finishes in the first three, John will show a profit."

Hughes acknowledged "a very brave decision" from Manley, but thinks that Dick Turpin's acceleration could be critical over the longer distance. "It's really made the race," the jockey said. "We were thinking about a Group Two in France on Sunday over 10 furlongs, with a 7lb penalty, and my thought was, 'If you're not going to stay it may as well be against the big boys.' I can't put my hand on my heart, and say he'll definitely stay. [But] he's given me all the vibes that he will. At the same time, I'll ride him to get the trip. There's no point kicking on three out."

In the lamentable absence of Harbinger, his opponents at York will include one or more of the Ballydoyle trio, comprising Rip Van Winkle, Cape Blanco and Beethoven, while Byword and Twice Over will represent the sponsors.

Hannon was, meanwhile, confirmed in his high opinion of Big Issue when the colt, a promising second on his Goodwood debut, bolted up in a maiden at Salisbury yesterday. Today's card at the same track features the Totesport Sovereign Stakes, a Group Three prize that could well strengthen Dick Turpin's form credentials through Hearts Of Fire, fourth in the Prix Jean Prat.

Turf account

Nap

Slip Sliding Away (8.05 Goodwood) Much improved since gelded, dropped in trip and switched to turf by his new stable, and can defy his revised mark after beating a subsequent winner at Ascot last time.

Next best

Marie De Guise (3.40 Salisbury) Mixed pedigree but the stamina on her maternal side looked her strongest suit when she rallied off a steady pace behind a prolific winner over a shorter trip here last time.

One to watch

Quiet Oasis (B J Meehan) Betrayed her inexperience early at Newmarket last weekend but managed third behind Morning Charm without too hard an introduction.

Where the money's going

Coral introduced Dick Turpin into their Juddmonte International market at 11-2.

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