Latest news with #AlanPartridge
Metro
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Metro
Steve Coogan reads the names of over 15,000 children killed in Gaza at vigil
Steve Coogan made a statement at a vigil at the Houses of Parliament as he read the names of 15,000 children who have died in Gaza. The actor and comedian, 59, was among the many people at the vigil organised by Choose Love on Thursday morning. The Alan Partridge actor, was one of the many artists who, for several minutes, read a long list of names of children who had been killed during the Israel-Hamas war. 'They were the names of children who have been killed in the bombing of Gaza in the last 20 months. 'It was just showing that those names are not just statistics, they are real people, real children who had lives who died and it's to some extent to humanise them. 'There's a world war phrase that one death is a tragedy and 10 thousand is a statistic,' he said, speaking to Sky News he said that he was at the event. In the same interview, he added: 'I'm here to protest about the, basically, enforced starvation of thousands of women and children in Gaza by the weaponisation of the blockade on aid to those people. 'And also it's to give this the coverage that a lot of mainstream news outlets aren't giving.' He said human rights should apply to everyone, and criticised tough rhetoric from governments in the UK, France and Canada as He added that human rights should be applied to every human and rhetoric from UK, French, and Canadian governments was 'too little, too late'. 'Tragically, it's taken the mass, indiscriminate killing of innocent people to get to this stage,' he said. 'I think more and more people are realising that it has to stop.' Juliet Stevenson, best known for acting in Bend It Like Beckham and Truly, Madly, Deeply, was also among the actors reading the exhaustive list of names. This vigil comes as the celebrities supporting Palestine grow, with stars including Dua Lipa, Gary Lineker and Benedict Cumberbatch calling on the Government to suspend arms sales to Israel in an open letter. More Trending The open letter read: 'We urge you to take immediate action to end the UK's complicity in the horrors in Gaza.' It highlights: 'Right now, children in Gaza are starving while food and medicine sit just minutes away, blocked at the border. Words won't feed Palestinian children – we need action. Every single one of Gaza's 2.1 million people is at risk of starvation, as you read this.' 'Mothers, fathers, babies, grandparents – an entire people left to starve before the world's eyes. 290,000 children are on the brink of death – starved by the Israeli government for more than 70 days.' This was about Israel's 11-week blockade of food and other supplies into Gaza, which was lifted last week to allow a 'basic amount of food into Gaza'. Got a story? If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@ calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we'd love to hear from you. MORE: Gazan doctor receives the charred remains of nine of her 10 children after Israeli bombing MORE: A mum in Gaza told me her children are waiting to die MORE: Everything we know so far about Washington DC shooting suspect Elias Rodriguez
Time Out
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
Tim Key: Loganberry
There's something genuinely heartening about the fact that Tim Key – essentially a weird poet – has become such a big deal, in part (of course) thanks to his appearances in less poetic guise in everything from talk shows to Alan Partridge to Bong Joon Ho's Mickey 17. There's no clear explanation as to what his new show Loganberry is about, and it seems like a stretch to imagine it's signifcantly related to his excellent previous show Mulberry (which has nothing to do with mulberries). But really just enjoy the ride as the shambolic master dips into the Fringe for a couple of weeks.
Daily Mirror
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Arsenal's sobering night as three PSG stars teach Mikel Arteta a huge lesson
And so it all comes down to a last tango in Paris. To keep the dream alive, Arsenal will have to drive a coach and horses through the entente cordiale like chat show clot Alan Partridge when he ventured across the Channel to unveil his sports casual fashion collection. Gunners godfather Arsene Wenger, making a rare return visit to the Emirates, was denied his crowning glory in a Paris monsoon at the Champions League final 19 years ago. Now Mikel Arteta's class of 2025 will have to play out of their skins to reach another one in Munich on May 31. For a club who didn't even exist until 1970, Paris Saint-Germain have a seriously impressive football team now. Luis Enrique is one of football's most progressive modern coaches. You wouldn't cross the road to watch some of the dross in this season's Premier League, but you would cross half a continent for a ticket to watch the former Spain manager's side turn it on. Georgian winger Khvicha Kvaratskhelia led Jurrien Timber a merry dance like a jukebox, Desire Doue looks a billion-dollar prospect and Ousmane Dembele found more pockets of space than Ronnie O'Sullivan at the Crucible. Arteta has waited five years, since lifting the FA Cup behind closed doors, to have the last laugh, and after a torrid first-half he looked like a man in need of good chortle - so over to Partridge and his naff fashion show. "The first look is one you'd wear to drive to Paris - it's called Cruiser Arriviste,' blathered Steve Coogan's cringe-a-minute creation. 'Canary yellow shirt, horizon blue stay-crease action slacks, cap, polaroids and tan string-back driving gloves. It's a look that says I'm in control of my vehicle.' When PSG cut through Arsenal with a measured precision, and Slovenian referee Slavic Vincic blew his whistle like a shipwreck survivor desperate to attract attention, the Gunners' response to Dembele's early goal was frantic. As Del Boy might say, in his pastiche Peckham-Francais, it all went a bit Chateauneuf du Pape. And when Leandro Trossard looked certain to equalise, Gianluigi Donnarumma saved the day for the perennial French champions. Donnarumma's specialist subject is breaking English hearts, usually in penalty shoot-outs. After the Euro 2020 final, the Italian giant was at it again last month, thwarting Liverpool at Anfield. But on the evidence of a sobering night on the Holloway Road, Arteta should be happy to take it to penalties next Wednesday. Join our new WhatsApp community and receive your daily dose of Mirror Football content. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice.
Daily Mail
23-04-2025
- General
- Daily Mail
On St George's Day, I'm proud to be a young Englishman - no matter what the establishment trying to destroy our identity says: CHARLIE DOWNES
Ever since I was a boy, I have had the privilege of being immersed in English culture. Whether they realised it or not, my parents gave me the most English childhood imaginable. I grew up in rural Kent and went to a Church of England primary school founded centuries before I was born. Next to it stands a Saxon church more than a thousand years old. Weekends were spent exploring castles, gardens and stately homes; watching Shakespeare at a small local theatre; and holidaying in Cornwall and Sussex, where we enjoyed long walks through fields and ancient woods, picnics on the beach, roast dinners in pubs older than the United States, and tea and scones in quaint tearooms. On the way home, we listened to The Beatles and Oasis. In the evening we watched Fawlty Towers and Alan Partridge, and before bed my father read me The Wind In The Willows and The Lord Of The Rings. And when it came to manners, my parents were positively Victorian. I could not have asked for a better upbringing – and today, on St George's Day, I hope that I can one day give my own children the gift of an English childhood. Until my late teens, I didn't think there was anything particularly remarkable about any of this. It was all I had ever known – it was just England. It was just home. It was only at university that I came to realise that the very notion of this country – everything I love, everything I am – has been under sustained assault by the elites of academia, media and government since before I was born. I remember a professor claiming that anyone flying a St George's Cross was likely a racist – and my peers agreed. It was insulting, given I had that very flag hanging on my bedroom wall. On another occasion, I dared to suggest that migrants living in England ought to have the basic courtesy to learn our language, for which I was castigated by peers and professors alike. It wasn't a debate, it was a Maoist struggle session, in which I played the part of the heretic. This was the early 2020s – a time during which the dual forces of Covid and Black Lives Matter had sent the West into a moral frenzy. Like every other institution, my university prostrated itself before the student body, grovelling in apology for the supposed presence of 'institutional racism' and vowing to challenge 'unconscious bias' and 'systemic inequality'. Yet, it seemed to me that the only tangible form of 'institutional racism' was shown towards the English, given that students and professors alike would regularly engage in Anglophobia without even a hint of repercussions. Meanwhile, I spent my free time doing what I have always done: exploring this great country. Visiting Royal Parks and rural pubs, reading Kipling and Burke, listening to Elgar and Parry. I went into every nearby church and felt the centuries of feet that had stood there before mine. I came to realise that it is no small gift to have been born an Englishman – that my rich childhood had only been possible because of the toil and sacrifice of my ancestors, who were responsible for creating one of the greatest civilisations the world has ever known. Slowly, the salience of my English identity rose. And I am not alone. Though the number of people identifying as English in the 2021 census dropped dramatically compared with 2011, there is a growing contingent of Generation Z who are embracing their English identity – and it is not hard to see why. Since at least the 1960s, Britain – like the rest of the West – has undergone a moral revolution. The triumph of liberal democracy over mid-century fascism elevated individual freedom to the position of ultimate good, and the culture began to attack everything that imposed duty and constraint: family, church and nation. In their place came consumerism, self-expression and identity politics – culminating in the ideology now known as 'woke'. With every traditional source of meaning dismantled, is it any wonder so many young people feel adrift? We are told to find our truth in personal autonomy. But this has not led to fulfilment – only to anxiety, loneliness and despair. Generation Z are the ultimate victims of this worldview – and as we face cultural dissolution, economic collapse and political disenfranchisement, fundamental questions resurface: Who are we? Why are we here? What, now, must be done? We are discovering that it is in those values that mainstream culture has tried to discredit – family, community, nation, faith and duty – where the answers are to be found. And among these, the nation is hated most – especially England. Why? Because it exposes the lie at the heart of liberal ideology. Ordinary people are not interested in abstract liberation. We want stability, purpose and a home where we feel we belong – in other words, we want England. And why wouldn't we? Everything about this country is beautiful – the countryside, the architecture, the humour, the music, the food, the history, the language, the people. This beauty did not come from nowhere – it is the product of my people, the English. Yet the institutions tasked with preserving this inheritance are now committed to its destruction. English culture, because of its global influence, has become invisible to many – its ubiquity mistaken for neutrality. Worse still, our elite's pathological modesty has turned into shame. Englishness is treated as oppressive – or, worse, non-existent – while every other identity is celebrated. At the same time, we are told that England is just a set of 'values', a place anyone can 'feel' a part of, like some cheap costume. It is now common for politicians and journalists to accuse Britain of being a two-tier society – but this is false. It is, in fact, a multi-tier one, with the English at the bottom. The Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish are granted devolved parliaments, state recognition and a nominal form of nationalism – but the English? Outside of sporting occasions, power will not even dare speak our name. Every other group is allowed to organise, lobby and demand attention, while we are told our identity is racist. And while our towns are transformed, our history erased and our daughters groomed, we are told to stay silent. Some universities teach students that the English no longer exist, while almost a quarter of the public agree that the English flag is a symbol of racism – which just goes to show how effective the anti-English propaganda has been. Is it any surprise, then, that young people like me – we children of the Blairite education system and the culture wars of the 2010s – are embracing English identity as an act of defiance? If we are going to play the game of identity politics – and we are – then why shouldn't we play to win? Why should we be denied a seat at the table in our own home? England exists. It is not just an idea. It is this land and all of its children – Alfred and Æthelstan, Eleanor and Elizabeth, Chaucer and Shakespeare, Newton and Darwin, Austen and Orwell, Elgar and Gallagher, you and me. I am proud to be English, and I will not be lectured to by an establishment that cares nothing for me or my people. We are Englishmen – and today it is time to stand up and act like it.
The National
01-04-2025
- Automotive
- The National
Lotus Emeya test drive: Subtle grand tourer with blistering performance
Lotus has gone through changes in recent years. The kind of models the brand was famous for producing were easily recognisable in their guise as tiny tearaways with the kind of speed and agility generally only displayed by hummingbirds. Not so much now, though. Ever since the Norfolk-based – an area in the UK many would recognise as being the home of Steve Coogan's Alan Partridge character – manufacturer was bought by Chinese car giant Geely, things have got larger. First came the Lotus Eletre, an electric super SUV with some mind-boggling performance figures and a vehicle quite unlike anything the brand had conceived before. Now we have the Emeya, the manufacturer's second non-fossil-fuel-powered offering and another one that no one would have expected to bear the company's yellow-and-green badge. This slope-backed grand tourer is classified as a hyper GT vehicle and, as that description might suggest, its performance figures are just as impressive as its heftier sibling. The Emeya has a top speed of 256 kph, which admittedly isn't earth shattering, but it'll do 0-100kph in 2.7 seconds. It is one of those vehicles that hides its blistering performance figures under the guise of what casual observers might consider to merely be a posh sedan. Nice looking then, and evidently a luxury option for sure, but not something that gives the impression it'll rip the wheel arches off many a supercar in the speed stakes. Appearances, then, can most certainly be deceptive. Blind speed aside, Lotus has managed to retain something of the agility of its past glories with the Emeya. The brand has evidently done some work when it comes to steering and all-over control, as it handles like a much smaller and lighter car. The sensation of speed is not as great as can be find in vehicles which are rather closer to the ground, but, make no mistake, the Emeya still pretty exciting to rip around in. The ride quality is notable, with the car absorbing all the bumpy bits with ease. Charging times has to be referenced with all electric vehicles, and the Emeya does extremely well in this department. The battery can be juiced up from 10 to 80 per cent in less than 15 minutes. Inside, the Emeya has plenty of carbon-fibre stylings, with the seat coverings apparently created out of cloth offcuts from unnamed fashion brands. It's terrifically spacious, outdoing many of its rivals, which is a definite bonus in a vehicle with this kind of performance. Tech mirrors that of the Eletre, with a centrepiece 15.6-inch infotainment screen that is, apparently, fitted with one of the fastest processors in the automotive industry. Like one of its closest rivals, the Porsche Taycan, the Emeya really is a supercar that can be used every day, rather more so than the cramped and low-slung vehicles some manufacturers make similar claims about. It would suit the kind of person who fancies a ridiculously high-performance vehicle that looks more subtle than a lot of similarly spec'd vehicles on the road today. It's just unusual enough to make it a little bit different as well.
