Heiress: Sargent's American Portraits review — an old-style triumph
I share a birthday with John Singer Sargent: January 12. It's just a quirk of dates and means nothing. But for the kinds of inchoate human reasons that swirl about in the darker and stupider regions of the mind, it has always made him feel closer to me than other artists. Perhaps it is why I have been harsh with him in some reviews. With Sargent, it feels personal.
Not that I am alone in mistrusting the talents of this flashy, quick-wristed, heiress-hunting society lapdog, who strolled about the fashionable salons of Europe in white linen sniffing out the money. For most of the 20th century Sargent (1856-1925) was looked down on by critics as a decadent presence. His pictorial talents were obvious. But so
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Telegraph
17 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Influencers are killing the radio DJ – and it's got to stop
At the end of last year, the death of DJ Johnnie Walker reminded us of something lost. I don't mean simply that we had lost a terrific broadcaster, but that his death marked the end of an era. Walker, a trooper, had presented his show until nearly the end of his life, despite being desperately ill. You could argue that working was, for him, a necessary distraction, but you also got the sense that he was doing it for the listeners. Among Walker's gifts as a presenter was his ability to share his musical passions: he was not some gushy and unrigorous fanboy, but a discerning expert who knew exactly how to distil his knowledge. Knowledge, though, is now a dirty word. The musical nous of DJs, not to mention the broadcasting skills of those who have trained on degree courses or learnt their craft on the job (often in now-denuded local radio), seems to matter less than marketability and the building of the brand. All hail, then, the rise of the social influencer DJ. Except this, to me, goes against the spirit of radio – and it seems that a lot of people agree. At the end of last week, there was a certain amount of outrage when it was announced that former Made in Chelsea cast member Sophie Habboo would join her husband and fellow Made in Chelsea alumnus Jamie Laing on Radio 1 's Going Home show. According to The Sun, social media was ablaze. One post proclaimed: 'There is something really gross, about two such privileged and independently wealthy (the Laings) given access to prime time national radio shows over people who have trained and studied for years in media.' Another pleaded: 'Please get some good DJs back in the drive time slot. It's getting embarrassing.' The BBC's decision to recruit Habboo is obvious enough, and the same is true of 25-year-old influencer GK Barry, who was recruited by Radio 1 recently. Their impact is extraordinary: their tentacles are able to reach the young and impressionable, and they offer cross-platform marketing (for example promoting their wares to their millions of followers). It also makes sense that radio bosses would be looking to the podcasting space for lucrative new hires: both Habboo and Laing co-host one of the UK's most popular podcasts, NewlyWeds, while GK Barry hosts the top-charting podcast Saving Grace. These stars have proven to be charismatic on a mic and have a highly transferable audience at their fingertips. What's more, I imagine that they offer a boon to commercial stations' advertising departments whose clients want to be associated with the lifestyle cult these influencers develop around them. In a way, this is nothing new. DJs were the original influencers, prescribing their tastes to audiences and thus shaping the buying habits of the public and making or breaking emerging artists. This is linked to the idea of the DJ as a personality, something that developed in Britain from the late 1960s, first with the introduction of Radio 1 and then the growth of commercial radio. This was the era when Noel Edmonds, Tony Blackburn and, alas, Jimmy Savile were treated like gods, and their fame was sometimes greater than the pop stars whose discs they spun. This era is now irrevocably tainted for obvious reasons, but you cannot deny that it also gave us some of the most extraordinarily talented DJs of all time: Annie Nightingale, John Peel, Terry Wogan and Kenny Everett. The last two of these prove that being a good radio broadcaster is not always down to musical knowledge or taste. Here were personalities, and in the case of Everett, a personality who took the seemingly sober task of being a disc jockey and turned it into something that would not look out of place among the surrealists. In an era where radio conversation is often dominated by cliché, a unique and strange voice such as Everett's is sorely needed. But we also need the musos. When I was growing up, my taste was moulded by DJs such as Peel, Dave Fanning on Virgin and, especially Steve Lamacq and Jo Whiley on Radio 1's Evening Session – a pair without ego who, thanks to their carefully controlled enthusiasm, provided the best music education I could have wished for. Hüsker Dü, the Sugarcubes, Belly, the Auteurs…bands who aren't much discussed today, but whose music has aged incredibly well. Lamacq is now on BBC 6 Music, a station that is treated, quite rightly, like a national treasure (remember the public outcry following former director-general Mark Thompson's strategy review in 2010 which deemed its independent thought and extensive and unusual playlist surplus to requirements?). But DJs like Lamacq are an increasing rarity – a former NME journalist who got his break on pirate radio, a voice who you knew had done his time scouring the pubs and clubs of the nation in search of musical excellence. It's hard to imagine Jamie Laing and Sophie Habboo doing the same. I don't necessarily mind the use of celebrities when it comes to presenting, and sometimes the results are surprising. I remember a few raised eyebrows when Alan Titchmarsh was appointed to Radio 2, but he was revelatory, a soothing son of the soil who not only offered authority, but also knew when to listen. The death of radio has been greatly exaggerated. The latest Rajar figures shows that Britain's biggest radio stations – Heart and Radio 2 – still attract audiences of 13.4 million and 13.1 million listeners, while a record number of people who actually listened to radio in the UK was reported to have risen to more than 50 million last year, apparently the biggest increase in 75 years. This is a cause for celebration, but it should also offer the opportunity to take stock, and think about what makes the medium great – and that's not the witterings of an influencer who is a brand ambassador for fake cheese.
Daily Mail
19 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
TEAMSHEET: Can YOU name the Chelsea team that beat Man United 5-0 in 1999? Or pick YOUR team and guess their starting XI
Welcome back to Teamsheet... Mail Sport's original football memory game with a twist that gives you the chance to test your football knowledge against your mates. Today, we're taking you back to the 1999-2000 campaign for the clash between Chelsea and Man United - where Gianluca Vialli's side ran riot at Stamford Bridge. Sir Alex Ferguson 's Red Devils would go on to clinch the Premier League title but, today, we want to see whether you can name the Chelsea line-up from the day. It's just for fun, so see how you fare and share your Teamsheet score... full instructions on how to play are at the bottom of the article and in the game itself. And you can also pick any team you like and guess their starting XI. Best of luck! HOW TO PLAY The aim of the game is to score as few points as possible! If you guess a player at the first attempt you score one point - so the lowest score for guessing every player at the first attempt is 11. Guess a correct letter in the right position, and it'll turn green. Guess a correct letter but in the wrong position, and it'll turn yellow. You have six guesses for each player - and if you fail, we'll reveal their identity for 11 points! You can also ask for a free letter, but it costs you a point. So play on to see if you'll score the best possible total of 11 - or fail on every player and score 121.
The Guardian
24 minutes ago
- The Guardian
‘We wanted to tell the wider story': play highlights impact of ‘spycops' scandal
There's one moment from the public inquiry into undercover police officers – known as 'spycops' – that sticks in the theatre director Rhiannon White's mind. It was during the questioning of Bob Lambert, an officer who deceived at least four women into sexual relationships in the 1980s, and fathered a child with one of them. 'Lambert's lack of attention to detail was shocking; the whole thing seemed like a process to him. Whereas Belinda Harvey, one of the women, meticulously remembered every single detail of their relationship, every feeling, every thought. She said she was in her early 20s when she met him, and she was basically groomed into activism by him. This is someone whose life was completely turned inside out and upside down by the state. This is someone who was raped by the state.' White, the artistic director of Cardiff and Bradford-based theatre company Common/Wealth, is directing a new play based on the scandal and inquiry. Entitled Demand the Impossible, the play – written by Taylor Edmonds and initially commissioned by National Theatre Wales – interrogates police injustice and the infiltration of more than 1,000 political groups between 1968 and 2010. The play has been developed in close collaboration with campaign groups including Undercover Research Network and Police Spies Out of Lives, drawing on the victims' enormous sense of betrayal and their ongoing fight for justice. 'My own friends who were part of the Cardiff Anarchist Network [CAN] were spied on by the police,' White said. 'My friend Tom Fowler found out his best friend of four years was an undercover copper called Mark 'Marco' Jacobs.' According to CAN, Jacobs took minutes at meetings and made newsletters and banners, but in reality he was gathering intelligence, disrupting the group's activities, and using it to infiltrate other groups, including a European network of activists. 'Tom was frustrated because a lot of people were taking on the spycops story and sensationalising it without talking to the activists involved. So we decided to put on our own play,' White said. 'We wanted to tell the wider story of how activism has been affected. The impact on society has been massive. Some of the changes that historically activists have campaigned for, and which are now enshrined in law, like the right of women to have bank accounts, or animal rights, were slowed down because of the effects of infiltration. The spycops turned people against each other, pulled them apart. 'We also wanted to ask: how do we go beyond that state interruption, to really demand a better world and be defiant with it?' The spycops scandal, one of the most closely guarded secrets in British policing, has been the subject of extensive reporting, spearheaded by the Guardian since 2010. At least 144 undercover officers in deployments typically lasting four years were sent to infiltrate mainly leftwing and progressive groups, and at least four of the undercover officers are known or alleged to have fathered children with women they met during their deployments. Fowler, who hosts the Spycops Info podcast, said it was challenging to express 'how fundamental the impact of the infiltration of progressive social movements has been, not just on the individuals who were targeted but also on society at large. 'We are in Britain all haunted by successive governments' decisions to suppress dissidents on the left and allow the far right to flourish – so much so that through the vetting and the blacklisting, nobody with any serious leftwing credentials gets into any positions of influence within society, whilst those on the right are all around us. 'I really hope the play serves as a glimpse into just how dystopian this country has become,' he added. Demand the Impossible premieres at the Corn Exchange, Newport, from 6 to 13 October 2025.
