Experiences raise questions about how telecoms firm treated small business owners, whose commission it cut

When Adrian Howe drowned in August 2018, his family found some solace in the support of his longtime employer.

The bond between the 58-year-old and Vodafone – the multinational mobile phone group for which Howe had worked for 20 years – was so tight that his funeral featured a wreath shaped like the company’s speech mark brand.

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The latest in our series of writers paying tribute to their most loved comfort films is an ode to the 2000 teen classic

The opening sequence of Bring It On is – in a word – unapologetic. A dozen cheerleaders scream “I’m sexy, I’m cute, I’m popular to boot” in synchronicity – and I have yet to meet anyone (and I have tried) who has the willpower to look away.

It’s certainly not an exaggeration to say I wanted to be one of them – that is, one of the Toros, Rancho Carne high school’s premier cheer squad. But, as a six-year-old watching in north London, I was a world away from the cornucopia of herkies, suggestive dance moves and hair flips of competitive cheerleading in San Diego.

Continue reading...

The latest in our series of writers paying tribute to their most loved comfort films is an ode to the 2000 teen classic

The opening sequence of Bring It On is – in a word – unapologetic. A dozen cheerleaders scream “I’m sexy, I’m cute, I’m popular to boot” in synchronicity – and I have yet to meet anyone (and I have tried) who has the willpower to look away.

It’s certainly not an exaggeration to say I wanted to be one of them – that is, one of the Toros, Rancho Carne high school’s premier cheer squad. But, as a six-year-old watching in north London, I was a world away from the cornucopia of herkies, suggestive dance moves and hair flips of competitive cheerleading in San Diego.

Continue reading...

Experiences raise questions about how telecoms firm treated small business owners, whose commission it cut

When Adrian Howe drowned in August 2018, his family found some solace in the support of his longtime employer.

The bond between the 58-year-old and Vodafone – the multinational mobile phone group for which Howe had worked for 20 years – was so tight that his funeral featured a wreath shaped like the company’s speech mark brand.

Continue reading...

The latest in our series of writers paying tribute to their most loved comfort films is an ode to the 2000 teen classic

The opening sequence of Bring It On is – in a word – unapologetic. A dozen cheerleaders scream “I’m sexy, I’m cute, I’m popular to boot” in synchronicity – and I have yet to meet anyone (and I have tried) who has the willpower to look away.

It’s certainly not an exaggeration to say I wanted to be one of them – that is, one of the Toros, Rancho Carne high school’s premier cheer squad. But, as a six-year-old watching in north London, I was a world away from the cornucopia of herkies, suggestive dance moves and hair flips of competitive cheerleading in San Diego.

Continue reading...

Experiences raise questions about how telecoms firm treated small business owners, whose commission it cut

When Adrian Howe drowned in August 2018, his family found some solace in the support of his longtime employer.

The bond between the 58-year-old and Vodafone – the multinational mobile phone group for which Howe had worked for 20 years – was so tight that his funeral featured a wreath shaped like the company’s speech mark brand.

Continue reading...

A surprising economic bubble is making it hard for anyone to buy Pokémon cards – especially children

Pokémon has been huge since the late 90s. Millions of people have fond memories of playing the original Red and Blue games, or trading cards in the playground for that elusive shiny Charizard (if your school didn’t ban them). The franchise has only grown since then – but, where the trading cards are concerned, things have taken an unexpected and unfortunate turn. It’s now almost impossible to get your hands on newly released cards thanks to an insane rise in reselling and scalping over the past year.

Selling on your old cards to collectors has always been part of the hobby, and like baseball cards or Magic: The Gathering, Pokémon cards can sometimes go for thousands of pounds. However, the resale market for Pokémon has climbed so high that even new cards are valued at hundreds, before they’ve even been released. The latest set, Phantasmal Flames, had a rare special illustration Charizard that was being valued at more than £600 before anyone had even found one. When a pack of cards retails at about £4, there’s a huge potential profit to be had.

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The pain is visceral, but civil society, media and the creative community have been sent into retreat since the 2019 pro-democracy protests

• Antony Dapiran is the author of two books on Hong Kong politics and protest

White flowers at makeshift shrines and messages of support posted in a public square. A rainbow of folded paper cranes. Boxes of donated goods for the those in need. Hongkongers’ responses to the Tai Po fire disaster – in which at least 159 people have died and 31 are still unaccounted for – have, on the surface, resembled similar community expressions of solidarity last seen during the 2019 protests. But beneath the surface, Hong Kong civil society is struggling to respond to this latest collective trauma in a city that has deeply changed in the past five years.

The cauterisation of Hong Kong’s civil society that has occurred under Beijing’s national security crackdown has meant that the types of grassroots activism that would traditionally have occurred in response to such a tragedy – as they would in any other open society – are no longer possible.

Antony Dapiran is the author of two books on Hong Kong politics and protest

Continue reading...

The pain is visceral, but civil society, media and the creative community have been sent into retreat since the 2019 pro-democracy protests

• Antony Dapiran is the author of two books on Hong Kong politics and protest

White flowers at makeshift shrines and messages of support posted in a public square. A rainbow of folded paper cranes. Boxes of donated goods for the those in need. Hongkongers’ responses to the Tai Po fire disaster – in which at least 159 people have died and 31 are still unaccounted for – have, on the surface, resembled similar community expressions of solidarity last seen during the 2019 protests. But beneath the surface, Hong Kong civil society is struggling to respond to this latest collective trauma in a city that has deeply changed in the past five years.

The cauterisation of Hong Kong’s civil society that has occurred under Beijing’s national security crackdown has meant that the types of grassroots activism that would traditionally have occurred in response to such a tragedy – as they would in any other open society – are no longer possible.

Antony Dapiran is the author of two books on Hong Kong politics and protest

Continue reading...