Hopes of a breakthrough in the dispute between BA and the Unite trade union
dashed after talks collapsed without agreement.
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With a finish line manoeuvre to exonerate an earlier penalty, Emirates Team New Zealand kept its Louis Vuitton Trophy bacon sizzling and lived to fight another day against Italian rivals Azzurra in their semi-final clash.
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Carlo Ancelotti insists it is far too early to talk about a summer clear out at Stamford Bridge following Chelsea’s Champions League exit to Inter Milan.
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Arsene Wenger has called on his Arsenal players to focus on beating West Ham to go top of the Barclays Premier League tomorrow rather than be distracted by their glamour Champions League quarter-final against Barcelona.
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Holders Barcelona will face Arsenal in the Champions League quarter-finals in a re-run of the 2006 final – and sporting director Txiki Beguiristain does not expect either side to curb their attacking instincts.
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Imperial Commander stayed-on strongly up the hill for trainer Nigel Twiston-Davies and jockey Paddy Brennan to land the totesport Cheltenham Gold Cup.
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From Knorr stock cubes to Turkey Twizzlers, the once legendary chef stoops ever lower. Should we simply indulge an old chef cashing in on lucrative liaisons?
In 1983, I attended an AFC Bournemouth football match where an ageing player, obviously well past his sell-by date, wheezed his way around the pitch to no great effect.
It was the once majestic George Best and his presence not only attracted twice the normal turnout for the third division team, but also prompted tears from some of the older fans standing around me as they recalled the glories of his pomp and lamented a career cut short by personal problems.
News that chef Marco Pierre White has agreed to become a brand ambassador for turkey producer, Bernard Matthews seems to have prompted a similar response in the food world. Although, MPW being who he is, the reaction appears to be more one of outrage than any sad reflection on his fallen status as Britain’s leading chef. The Twitterverse is ablaze with indignation. “Odious shill” and “you call yourself a proper chef?!” being some of the more sympathetic responses to the news.
The problem is not that he has chosen to take money for the use of his name. We are now all too used to the notion that leading chefs are brands and their restaurants merely one part of a portfolio of products which include everything from cookware to books. Lending his name to unlikely products is hardly a new pastime of Marco Pierre White. This is, after all a man who, through his endorsement of Knorr stock cubes, “the best f***ing ingredient in the world” made popular the use of the word “jellified”.
The real issue for most seems to be to whom Marco has sold his soul to for the use of his name. Despite his protestations that Bernard Matthews is “without question one of the great farmers of the last five decades” it is hard not to think of the Norfolk poultry farmer without reference to the 2009 outbreak of bird flu, the incident where workers played baseball with birds at one of his factories, or indeed its production of the now infamous Turkey Twizzlers, held up by Jamie Oliver as proof that all was not well in the state of the U.K’s school dinners (that Mr Oliver endorses a supermarket who sells Matthews’ equally appetising sounding “Golden Turkey Drummers” seems entirely lost on his legion of fans).
Endorsing Bernard Matthews hardly fits the image of a man who as recently as December 2009 still have claimed to be “an ambassador for my trade”. This is, we should remember, one of the people who lit the fuse for Britain’s current love of food, first, at the late 80s hotbed that was Harvey’s and then as he became the youngest chef to gain three Michelin stars during his tenure at his eponymous restaurant at the former Hyde Park Hotel. His book White Heat remains an essential for any serious food fan and, without his tutelage of young chefs, the current UK’s dining scene would be a lot less interesting.
However we should also recognise that this Marco Pierre White, the Marco of White Heat has not really existed since he retired from the kitchen at the turn of the Millennium. His personal and business problems have been well recorded. His US television series Chopping Block was pulled after a handful of episodes (although the series was completed at a later date) and in 2007, his marriage to wife, Mati unravelled in a costly divorce. Few would now be able to defend him from the accusation that he is now simply following the money wherever it will lead him.
But I, for one, don’t really blame him. His is a star very much on the wane and, while we may remember what he once was, we should be more sympathetic to who he now is, a man who is leveraging his fading brand to produce what income he can before people forget about him altogether. He at least, compared to many other chefs, does it with admirable chutzpah.
I recall again the sad sight of George Best dredging the last remnants of his lost talent out on a cold football field far, far from his glories days at Old Trafford. When some in the crowd shouted out abuse as Best gave up on a chase for the ball with a dismissive wave of his hand, my elder companion whispered to me “They should leave him alone. He’s given us years of pleasure. Now, let him make some money.”
That’s very much how I feel about Marco Pierre White.
The dollar extended its rally Friday morning as U.S. stocks fell into the red and mounting concerns about Greece’s debt problems hurt demand for riskier assets. The euro was hit further, dipping as far as USD1.3512, the lowest since March 2, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average changed direction and… ]]>
The euro continues to be weighed down in the early New York morning on lingering concerns about whether Greece would secure financial assistance from the EU. The USD also benefited from risk aversion flows following the inter-meeting rate hike by India’s central bank (RBI). India was expected to possibly raise… ]]>
1H: The 1H time-frame shows the dramatic decline in the near-term after the start of the US session. Note that the completed retracement rally was a zig zag with a 2-wave A structure and a 3-wave C structure. The wave count is not clear to me here , but the… ]]>