U2's the Edge buys Titanic artwork at Belfast charity auction
"It's sort of like a pat on the back for myself, to say, you know: 'This is working. You must be doing something right to be standing up here and for this to happen.'"I've been a big U2 fan myself from when I was a wee boy - and I'm listening to it here most nights as well when I'm painting in the studio."Stephen, who worked on the painting while guests attended the event for the Cancer Fund for Children, said the Edge gave him some wordless encouragement during the evening."He walked past me and sort of looked over at the painting, at what I was doing, and he sort of just nodded and gave me a thumbs up and a little wink."
The Paints are Coming
That encouragement turned real when the Edge began bidding on the painting, a move that left Stephen, who said he put his "heart and soul" into the artwork, feeling "very humbled"."I was up on stage, I said my piece, they started auctioning it off - the Edge was sort of sitting looking at me, sort of smiling and it got to the point where he started bidding."And I don't think anybody wanted to try to outbid him on the night, so he won the painting in the auction. I was so, so pleased and I couldn't believe it." The artist said the process of painting live is "slightly different" to being in his studio but that he focuses on "making it the best I can". "I'm generally a bit of a show off anyway, so it sort of helps that I've got a crowd to watch it, and it really puts me under a little bit of pressure to make it even better."Stephen said the painting sold for four figures and he's "just so happy for the charity" and felt "a bit of a spur" to raise money for it.
But why paint the Titanic Museum? For Stephen, it's partly due to advice from his grandfather to take photos of things so "you can look back" because they "might not be here" forever.He said ongoing development around the Titanic Museum means the view he painted won't be the same in the future."With the likes of the Titanic [building], there's development going on and things will happen.""It's hard to take for a lot of Belfast people when they're going to drive over the M3 and they sort of can't see it anymore."As for the Edge, Stephen said the guitarist was very down to earth.For a photo after the auction, the artist "went to stand at the other side of the painting and he said no, no, come over beside me, and he got me to put my arm around him and he put his arm around me". "It was quite a lovely moment."
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BBC News
25 minutes ago
- BBC News
Norwich Castle fully reopens after years of restoration work
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The Guardian
25 minutes ago
- The Guardian
‘Sometimes I overshare': Adam Buxton on fear, fun, finance – and falling out with friends
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Buxton, 56, cuts a pensive figure as he strokes his grey-streaked beard. He has travelled to the Guardian's London offices from his home in Norfolk, where he lives with Sarah, their three children and their dog Rosie, who regularly features on his podcast. The Adam Buxton Show began in 2015, the year that his longstanding comedy partner, Joe Cornish, went off to make movies. During Covid, at a time when people were more isolated and atomised than ever, Buxton's gentle, affable chat won a vast and loyal fanbase. Conversation is important to Buxton. He was raised in west London by his journalist father, Nigel, who was travel editor of the Sunday Telegraph, and Chilean mother, Valerie. He has described his dad as 'gruff, pompous, conservative and harshly critical of nearly everything I enjoyed as a youngster and beyond', while his mum was his 'ally', someone who squared up to his father and encouraged Buxton's love of music and eventual TV and comedy career. 'Watching my parents, the problem was they didn't talk enough,' he says. 'Stubbornness, pride and hurt feelings prevented them. It's probably why I feel it's ultimately a good thing to talk more rather than less … Sometimes I feel I overshare and sometimes I can hear my dad or even my mum going, 'It's too much – say less.'' Buxton's readiness to talk about his own life encourages his podcast guests to let their guard down. His friend Louis Theroux opened up about his drinking problems, admitting that during the pandemic he would regularly be parenting his three sons hungover. 'I did sometimes wonder if you could do the job drunk,' he told Buxton. 'Maybe that's controversial, but I'm going to say yes.' Singer Pauline Black talked about performing in front of skinheads who were on speed in the 1970s and constantly fearing racist violence. Zadie Smith reflected on the 'death terror' that inspires her. How does Buxton approach such a wide range of guests? 'I'm always just looking for a moment of genuine connection,' he says. The guests aren't all celebrities. The Syrian refugee Hassan Akkad described being detained and tortured by the police for attending a protest, then paying smugglers to take him on a dinghy from Turkey to Greece. Once the overfilled boat began to sink, he swam for seven hours to make it to Lesbos. 'It's valuable for people to be able to talk to each other about complicated things,' Buxton says. 'I grew up in a house with parents who I didn't agree with politically, but that didn't stop me loving them. The problem now is that people are very prepared to think the worst of anyone. That seems to be the default position, to read the most bad-faith version of whatever's going on in the situation.' Over the past few years, for the first time, he's had some permanent fallings out with friends over politics. 'It was really shocking when it happened, because I sat down with them and tried to get past it,' he says. ''Surely we can talk about it?' I said. 'We've got too much in common.' And it was so upsetting and frightening when it was apparent that we couldn't. It completely threw me for a loop for a while.' He has written two memoirs: Ramble Book, published in 2020, about his life in the 1980s and the death of his father in 2015; and 2025's I Love You, Byeee, which covers his TV career in the 1990s and the death of his mother in 2020. He spent nine months caring for his father after he was diagnosed with cancer. 'Before he moved in, I'd imagined conversations filled with tender reminiscences, confessions and closure,' he writes. 'In the end, we were just two uptight men who found it easier to be on our own.' His mother's death felt more sudden, despite her health deteriorating over a number of years. 'The ones who really love you, you end up taking for granted,' he told Cornish in a podcast episode recorded a few months later. 'I just had it in my head that we were going to have another chapter and she would be with us. I was totally sideswiped by her death.' Hearing him grapple with his bereavement has helped me with my own grief over the death of my mother. At the end of I Love You, Byeee, he thanks his mother for loving him and apologises for not taking the time to talk to her more about her life. It's a regret I've often had myself, holding on to questions that will now never be answered, and there is a comfort in hearing that expressed by someone else. How is he coping now? 'I feel as if I've really been in the hole with grief for ages, looking through photos, thinking about it, talking to relatives, maybe spending too much time there and not moving on sufficiently,' he says. 'I really miss them and that doesn't go away. I'm surprised how much that doesn't go away.' He is still haunted by one song that reminds him of his mother, Randy Crawford's One Day I'll Fly Away. 'I listened to that song the night after she died, since it's one of her favourites, but this time I suddenly heard such darkness in it,' he says. 'She sings, 'I follow the night / Can't stand the light / When will I begin / My life again?' and it made me think of where my mum might be and I began to feel so fearful. There's grief and then there's fear and the fear is worse.' Buxton went to the fee-paying Westminster school in London, which is where he became friends with Theroux and Cornish. It was while studying at Cheltenham College of Art that he began tinkering with the self-filmed sketches he sent to the Channel 4 show Takedown TV, and which formed the basis for the Adam and Joe Show. This began in 1996, and included everything from a toy-themed recreation of The English Patient, to Buxton's father being filmed as he explored the nightclubs of Ibiza. 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Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
From planned funerals to spending 'fake' winnings: How dozens of Gala Bingo players thought they'd scooped their share of £1.6million... only to be told it was a GLITCH
More than 1,000 Gala Bingo players were left with shattered dreams and empty pockets after the prizes they thought they had won were the result of an online glitch. The players believed they had nabbed up to £10,000 each from a prize pot of £1.6million on the popular online gambling site. But when they attempted to withdraw their winnings, they were told by the company that they would not be able to cash the money. The glitch in the bingo company's system resulted in the prize pot increasing to £1.6million when it should have only reached a maximum of £150. As a result, 1,188 players were left disappointed and out of pocket. The gambling site then sent out an email to its customers explaining the wins were a result of a technical fault and confirming that they would not be receiving the thousands of pounds some of the players felt they were owed. One family told The Daily Mail that they had hoped to spend their winnings on a funeral for a relative and were upset and disappointed when Gala Bingo said they could not cash the £9,600 they thought they had won. The Scottish pair, who wished to remain anonymous, discovered their accounts frozen and the money nowhere to be seen after playing online on Monday. A Scottish couple had hoped to spend their £7,000 on a funeral for a family member who had recently died and were disappointed when they were told the winnings were not theirs to cash One player even had his account on the website frozen and claims he has had his chat room privileges stopped because he was encouraging others to complain The woman revealed that her partner had recently lost his mother and was over the moon to find the 1p game providing winnings of up to £7,200. She confessed that they both felt like the Scotsman's mother was watching over and smiling down at them. She added that she also tried to cash in on the good luck and enjoyed a game of bingo, taking home £2,4000 herself. The couple were relieved by the surprise windfall and planned to spend the jackpot on a fully pink-themed funeral in honour of his mother complete with pink kilts. The woman said: 'My partner went up to get his medication and when he came back and sat down he looked shocked. I double checked and it said we had won £2,400. 'We thought we could take care of the funeral with no worries about the expense.' The Scot added that she feared something wasn't right when she saw there were as many as 1,000 winners and the jackpost was still available. But she and her partner continued to play and their fears were even soothed by the bingo chat room host who told them to enjoy their winnings. She explained that she believed to have had a lucky streak, winning a pot worth £2,400 three times in a row but when it came to cashing the money, her account was frozen She said: 'I wasn't sure about it all but then the host said "enjoy your winnings" - they obviously didn't realise what was happening.' The 52-year-old woman said that some players were able to withdraw the money straight to their Santander bank accounts but others couldn't. She told the Daily Mail that since the shocking incident, Gala Bingo has frozen her and her partners accounts and even disabled her husband's chat room privileges. because of his complaining. As recompense, she said they had been given some money back in the form of vouchers but felt it wasn't enough. She said: 'My partner is angry and it's become all-consuming, especially at such a difficult time. this has just knocked him sideways. 'It's all been dealt with so badly, it wasn't right.' And the husband and wife weren't the only ones blindsided by the Gala Bingo glitch. Victoria Geer, 28, and a full time mother from Oxford confessed she was 'shocked and so disappointed' to be told by the gambling site that her winnings were in fact not hers at all. She explained that she believed to have had a lucky streak, winning a pot worth £2,400 three times in a row but when it came to cashing the money, her account was frozen. The mother-of0one said: 'I put in £15 at around 8pm and played the 1p Bingo but by 8.30pm I'd been roped in to run-up rewards but I didn't know what that was and then suddenly I got told I had won £2,400 three times in a row.' She said the company's decision to blame a glitch and refuse to pay out was 'very sneaky and crafty.' Ms Greer added that she had thought the prize money was real throughout because even the chat host congratulated her and told her to spend her winnings. The mother told the Daily Mail that she had hoped to spend the small fortune on things for her new baby boy and a holiday but revealed they were all now on hold. 'I was going to spend the money on my 18-week-old boy and get him some lovely things for Christmas and go away on holiday with my partner to Spain for a week in March. 'I wanted driving lessons and a test because I don't drive at the moment so I'm disappointed,' she said. The mother said that while she initially bought her daughter a pair of Crocs instead of a pair of 'cheap sandals from Primark' she was loathed to do any more shopping in case Gala Bingo decided to take her winnings from her bank account. Mother and daughter Susan, 64, and Beth, 31, said they couldn't believe it when they thought they had won almost £10,000 together. The pair said they had withdrawn as soon as they could after seeing the winning notification pop up on screen but their payment never made it to their account. 'We were playing and then Emily said she had won something and it turned out we had won £9,600 each and I just couldn't believe it,' Susan said. 'I was worried it wasn't legit and so I tried to withdraw it but after about four hours it said the payment was cancelled.' The 64-year-old, who recently suffered a stroke, said she thought the money would go some way to renovating her cottage to make it more accessible following the change in her health. 'I was going to spend my winnings on changes to my cottage to help now that I've had this stroke.' She added that she thought Gala bingo needed to be held accountable and said she wanted some recompense for the stress of the whole experience. Bethand Susan received one per cent of the money they thought they had won and a Gala Bingo voucher but have said it's not enough. 'Somebody has to pay for this and something has to be done. 'Why did no one flag the error? I was told I had won £2,4000 three times in a row - how did no one spot this mistake? 'And to only give people one per cent back - it's not enough, it doesn't cover the stress this has caused. We've only got £96 out of the £9,600 we thought we had. Beth had some better luck than her mother and managed to withdraw some of the money before the transaction could be cancelled, but it was just a small amount of the full total she believed she had won. She said: 'I managed to withdraw about £250 but now the rest in my account has been frozen and I can't withdraw it. Some people might have been able to withdraw thousands but we couldn't and we don't know. 'Now we've just been given a bingo bonus of £20 but has to be spent on Gala Bingo and within a week so we're tied in because it's not withdrawable.' She added that both she and her mother would not be returning. Beth said: 'I won't play again. I've vowed never to play again. It's ruined my trust.' But not everyone had such a difficult time and one Manchester resident, who wished to remain anonymous, was one of the lucky few who managed to cash in all her winnings. The woman was able to cash in £2,400 from Gala Bingo and has been spending the money on clothes and shoes for her eight-year-old daughter ahead of their caravan holiday. She explained that she didn't think there was anything odd about the win because she had previously managed to bag £1,500 from the site but withdrew the cash immediately to put towards her family holiday. She said: 'I was playing and realised I'd won at 7.44pm and withdrew the money to my bank account at 7.46pm and it was there within ten minutes. I didn't even think there was anything wrong or it was a glitch because I've won a few times before and once won £1,500.' She added she thought her success was down to her speed and said she assumes she was one of the first to cash in her prize. The Bingo player added that she was also led to believe her success was nothing out of the ordinary because she received an official email from the company warning her to consider what to do with such a large sum and signposting gambling support. But the Manchester mother confessed she has since been wracked with guilt knowing that not everyone was as lucky as her. She told the Daily Mail: 'I feel so awkward and guilty - people are talking about suing them and saying they are owed money but I don't know. 'I can't sleep - I didn't get to sleep until 4.30am on Monday and it's put me off spending the money. ' The mother said that while she initially bought her daughter a pair of Crocs instead of a pair of 'cheap sandals from Primark' she was loathed to do any more shopping in case Gala Bingo decided to take her winnings from her bank account. 'I went to the Old Trafford Centre but I couldn't buy anything, I'm scared that if I spend it and they ask for it back - I can't have that kind of debt. 'I'm just trying to buy sensibly for my daughter for the holidays.' The Daily Mail has contacted Gala Bingo for comment.
